Objective: to evaluate format of medical journals in Vietnam. Methods: a cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted basing on expert opinion on 2 latest issues of each journal paper from August to November of 2011. Results: Most of journals had appropriate content and illustration. Few of them gave adequate information in the first cover. Only 1 out of 10 had appropriate layout and no printing mistake. Most of journals pointed out their specific areas of concern, format specified for each article, manuscript preparation skill and brief description. Almost journals had ununified abstracts and mistakes among articles. Around 1/7 hac{ no instruction of quotations and references. More than 1/3 had abstracts complying with instruction. Only 1/10 had no mistake in tables. Conclusions: most of journal had unified format among issues, instructions for collaborator. Printing quality was not so good. Majority had ununified shape, size and format as well as mistakes in content
tables, illustrations, figures and diagrams were still inappropriate.