Make it quick and to the point: EHJ introduces new rapid communications category for faster delivery of translational data

Abstract

As of February 2023, EHJ will be able to offer a new category suited to the concise reporting of focused clinical and translational data. The Rapid Communications category which has already received and reviewed around 50 papers, will publish articles of up to 1000 words online focusing on methods and results with minimal introduction and discussion. The new Deputy Editor is Milton Packer MD, Distinguished Scholar in Cardiovascular Science at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, TX, USA, who also holds an appointment at Imperial College, London, UK. Prof. Packer told CardioPulse what the new category will mean for authors and readers of the Journal. (Figure 1) Many excellent papers have a single core message. But all too often, the authors try to create a full-length paper even though there is only a single set of important data. When there is a single core message, much of the conventional elements of a full-length paper do not add very much. The Introduction often repeats what is already known. The Methods have often been published elsewhere. The Results may have 4–8 tables and figures, but only one has data of real interest or importance. The Discussion is often a repetition of the Results or reads like a review article. Therefore, the paper would have much greater impact if it presented only the elements that were novel or important. That is why the Rapid Communications format was created. In a Rapid Communications paper, the article typically has 1–2 sentences for the introduction and 2–3 sentences for the Discussion. The core of the paper is the Methods and the Results. If one thinks about it, those are the elements that really matter in every paper in medicine and science, regardless of its length.