What to publish.

Abstract

Medical Publishing Series Jyoti Shah, Pippa Smart Series Editors E: jyoti.shah@burtonft.nhs.uk , pippa.smart@gmail.com ‘The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into new land.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson Technological developments have transformed communications in the modern era. Innovations like Wikipedia have replaced shelves of encyclopaedias and e-books are replacing textbooks. Nevertheless, the scientific journal article has remained stagnated to a presentation that is as old as the academic journal itself: introduction, methods, results and discussion. The only difference is that they are much longer! The average scientific article in 1975 was 7.4 pages long and this has risen to 12.4 pages within a few decades. 1 Despite this, readers are spending less time reading. 2 Are they busier or has their attention span become shorter? If audiences are mainly reading the abstract, the conclusions, and looking at the illustrations, with only some maybe reading the whole article, perhaps articles need to reflect this change? Most journals want original, focused, well written articles, and manuscripts that advance the knowledge and understanding in a certain field. Communication can, however, be more than the original scientific article: case reports, reviews or summaries and letters or other short forms of communication. In this article Professor Alderson, editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Surgery, discusses what types of medical publications exist and at what stage of your career to consider writing them. What is clear is that readers are not interested in reports with no scientific interest, out-of-date work, duplications of previously published work and incorrect or unacceptable conclusions. JYOTI SHAH Commissioning Editor