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EDITORIAL |
Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, Email: shepsds@medicine.ufl.edu
I am, of course, not the first to make this observation, but let me plunge ahead anyway: We live in a time of rapid-fire communication fostered by technological advances. Yet here we are in our little world of academic publishing, a niche where careful review has been prized over speed. At Psychosomatic Medicine, we are not about to give up the careful review, but we recognize that we can speed up the time to publication for accepted articles. We know this is important to authors and readers, and it is important for the Journal’s standing as a leading forum for biobehavioral research. In recent times, our authors have sometimes had to wait 10 months or more to see their work in print. We are taking steps to reduce the average time between acceptance and publication to no more than 6 months.
In this issue, you may notice slight changes in our format. Our designers at Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) analyzed our layout and found ingenious ways to make the most of our page space. You may also notice that this issue is fatter than usual. For the next few issues, we are adding pages to reduce our queue of accepted articles. The extra pages represent an important investment by the American Psychosomatic Society and LWW in the Journal’s continued success.
I also would like to draw your attention to some changes in our instructions to authors. You will see that we are instituting a word limit—6500 words for original articles and 3500 words for brief communications. This does not imply that every manuscript should achieve the outer limits of the word count, but rather it is meant to serve as an outer boundary for length of submitted articles. If you compare our limits to other well-respected journals such as Circulation, you will find that we are quite generous.
Considering the trend of many journals to favor succinct articles, we realize that Psychosomatic Medicine often serves as the only outlet for more thorough manuscripts. We do not wish to depart in any major way from our tradition. We do, however, see it as important to have sufficient space to publish timely articles and to publish all articles in a timely fashion. We encourage authors who have what they consider to be very timely and important new information to submit it to Psychosomatic Medicine.
One other change of note in our instructions: We are asking authors to consult the CONSORT, MOOSE, and QUORUM statements. These acronyms stand for, respectively, the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials, the Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology, and the Quality of Reporting of Meta-analyses. These are consensus statements designed to improve the quality of the scientific literature (1—3). Because we work in a field that often is criticized for methodologic inadequacies, I think it is especially important that our authors and reviewers pay close attention to ensuring the scientific rigor of the research reported in these pages.
Last year, in my first editorial as editor of the Journal, I mentioned that one of my goals was to increase the Journal’s influence and impact (4). We are working to do this, through our office and in partnership with APS members, Council officers, and staff and with the help of our publisher. As one of our efforts to extend our reach, we sent free subscriptions to Chiefs of Medicine at every medical school in the country. As Dennis Novack, MD, noted in his presidential address this past March, we need to continue to strive to bring our message to the general medical community, not only by publishing relevant high quality research but by emphasizing the importance of the mind-body connection in clinical care (5).
To this end, a new feature titled "Clinicians Corner" will debut soon. Associate Editor Robert Golden, MD, is editing this feature, which will showcase articles intended to be of particular relevance to clinicians. In alternating issues, we will publish a Statistical Corner feature, where we will present mini-reviews and state-of-the-art discussions on various statistical and methodological issues. Associate Editor Kenneth E. Freedland, PhD, and Statistical Editor Robert P. McMahon, PhD, will co-edit this continuing feature.
As many of you know, we initiated web-based article submission and review last year. Most of the feedback we have received has been positive, and we gladly assist authors and reviewers who either lack computer savvy or who experience glitches. Psychosomatic Medicine issues have been on the Web for several years, and we are keeping an eye on developments in the electronic publishing world. We would like to consider how our readership would respond to the possibility of publishing some articles only on the web. We are developing a survey that we plan to send later this year to members of the Society. When it arrives, we hope you will take the time to fill it out so that our decisions will be shaped by your opinions about this important area.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to invite our readers to communicate to this office any suggestions they may have regarding how we may continue to improve the Journal and increase its influence. I appreciate your support.
REFERENCES
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