Editorial Responsibilities Research Articles

Raising BRN: Growth of a Journal

Raising BRN: Growth of a Journal

Editorial Responsibilities

No abstract.

WE-C-202-01: Medical Physics Publishing

There is an art to writing a scientific paper so that it communicates accurately, succinctly, and comprehensively. Developing this art comes with experience, and sharing that experience with younger physicists is an obligation of senior scientists, especially those with editorial responsibilities for the journal. In this workshop, the preparation of a scientific manuscript will be dissected so participants can appreciate how each part is developed and then assembled into a complete paper. Then the review process for the paper will be discussed, including how to examine a paper and write an insightful and constructive review. Finally, we will consider the challenge of accommodating the concerns and recommendations of a reviewer in preparing a revision of the paper. A second feature of the workshop will be a discussion of the process of electronic submission of a paper for consideration by Medical Physics. The web‐based PeerX‐Press engine for manuscript submission and management will be examined, with attention to special features such as epaps and line‐referencing. Finally, new features of Medical Physics will be explained, such as Vision 20/20 manuscripts, Physics Letters and the standardized formatting of book reviews. Learning Objectives: 1. Improve the participants' abilities to write a scientific manuscript. 2. Understand the review process for Medical Physics manuscripts and how to participate in and benefit from it. 3. Appreciate the many features of the PeerX‐Press electronic management process for Medical Physics manuscripts. 4. Develop a knowledge of new features of Medical Physics.

Editor's Note: Change of Editorial Responsibility

Editor's Note: Change of Editorial Responsibility

New Leadership, New Directions, New Format

It is a privilege to assume the Editor-in-Chief position of The Journal of Primary Prevention and to follow in the leadership of P. Britner, who has retired from his editorial responsibilities. Under his 5 years of leadership, JPP has grown tremendously: the journal has transitioned into the electronic age, been indexed, and increased its stature among prevention journals. Thank you, Brit, for your commitment to the journal and to prevention research! I feel honored to take on this role. My goal is to expand the focus and strategic direction of JPP to maintain its trajectory toward becoming a premier journal in prevention and public health. As in the past, the journal will also continue to publish on major causes of disparities, social determinants, schooland community-based programs, cross-cultural comparisons, community-based participatory research, factors contributing to social injustice, and both qualitative and quantitative studies.

Manuscript Rejection for the Schizophrenia Bulletin: Some Reasons

Since assuming editorial responsibilities for Schizophrenia Bulletin in 2005, there has been an increasing number of high-quality manuscripts submitted to the journal. This is very encouraging and gratifying but made the review process particularly challenging when saying “no” to good papers. Our page budget is especially small for regular articles and decisions are often made rapidly without external review so that there is little delay in submission elsewhere. Other manuscripts will receive a rejection decision after full review, and each category contains many good papers advancing knowledge and ideas that we hope will be published but will not make our tight space. Our acceptance rate is about 20% of ∼400 regular articles that we receive annually, and for these, it takes an average of 108 days from submission to production. Although we are able to publish accepted papers online in a timely manner, we face a large backlog of papers that have been published online but not in print. The Bulletin has developed a broad and diverse readership that we plan to continue to serve. We value our special features that cover several topics including the first person accounts, translational pieces for clinical and basic scientists, Cochrane Corner, and brief reviews on genetic and environmental factors relevant to schizophrenia. The emphasis of this section is on clarity and accessibility to a broader audience. Our theme issues provide timely, comprehensive, and multifaceted review of wide-ranging topics in schizophrenia and continue to be the centerpiece of Schizophrenia Bulletin. As a result, space is particularly tight for regular articles. Here, we seek to publish findings that are new, definitive, and which make substantial advances in schizophrenia research. Currently, we reject about 80% of these submissions, often papers reviewed as “good” or “very good.” The basis for our judgment of rejecting these manuscripts often involves one or more of the following considerations. Data support knowledge already established but extends it to a new geographic or cultural setting or the report is based on a larger sample. Longitudinal or follow-up studies where prognostic and outcome data are reported that generally support existing knowledge, albeit on a new and interesting cohort. Important correlations are reported but lack specificity. For instance, findings of decreased connectivity between 2 brain regions in imaging data in schizophrenia correlated with a specific cognitive function in itself is often not definitive. The data need to show that the disruption in connectivity is regionally specific, and the relationship with the specific cognitive function is unique and not part of the general cognitive/motivational deficit associated with schizophrenia. Important conclusions based on inadequate sample. If schizophrenia is the independent variable, interpretation of dependent measures as reflecting the disease process when other likely sources (eg, drug effects) are not addressed. Reporting similarities across heterogeneous syndromes without clarifying whether the similarities are decisive on diagnostic classification issues or merely expected across syndrome similarities (eg, if 2 psychosis syndromes have a substantial proportion of subjects with anxiety, anxiety-related measures will be observed in both without bearing on the question of separate illnesses or on a continuum). Reports on the negative symptom construct without addressing primary vs secondary causation of negative symptoms. Efficacy conclusions for nonpsychotic domains of pathology (eg, cognition) without addressing the pseudospecificity issue.1,2 Genetic association findings in the absence of replication sample or other converging lines of evidence. Review or meta-analysis papers on a topic covered in publications elsewhere in the past few years. Secondary analyses that may extend published findings without substantially advancing the field. These are some of the examples that guide our decisions. Ideally, we would like to accommodate many more of the high-quality papers that at present are rejected mostly because of limited space. We are now implementing a new set of guidelines for limiting manuscript size (see http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/schbul/for_authors/auth2.html). This would help us with the backlog of online papers ready for print publication and not reject high-quality regular articles.

Editorial Responsibilities

No abstract.

Round 2 at JASN

To become the second editor of JASN was not an easy road traveled. My competition consisted of two highly visible and extremely well-published nephrologists from prestigious institutions with extensive editorial experience, each of whom had served the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) in many capacities, including president. Before and immediately after my interview with the search committee at the time of the 1995 ASN Annual Meeting in San Diego, I had serious doubts that I would be selected; however, on the final day of the annual meeting, I learned that I would be the next editor of JASN. After a very brief period of euphoria, I began to feel like the old hound that loved to chase cars but after finally catching one was uncertain what to do next. I quickly recovered and immediately asked Kirsten M. Madsen and R. Tyler Miller to serve as my deputy editors, and together we set about the task of organizing a new staff in preparation for taking on the editorial responsibilities of JASN in July 1996. Critical to our effort was convincing Ms. Bonnie O’Brien, then current managing editor of JASN (founding editor Jared Grantham’s right-hand person) and a native of Kansas City, to relocate with JASN to Gainesville and the University of Florida. I believe the fact that she was an avid and very skilled tennis player and that tennis is enjoyed outdoors the year around in Gainesville was a major factor in her successful recruitment. The transition from the old to the new editorial team was virtually seamless, in large part because of the professionalism displayed by the very successful founding editor, Jared Grantham, and the presence of Bonnie. Interestingly, although the journal editorship has moved twice since leaving Gainesville, first to Seattle under William Couser and now in Nashville with Eric Neilson, Bonnie and the managing editor’s office have remained in Gainesville, a true testimonial to the power of the internet and tennis! I was extremely fortunate to enjoy the support of an outstanding group of associate editors that included Corinne Antignac, Alfred K. Cheung, Mark Knepper, Alan M. Krensky, Richard P. Lifton, William E. Mitch, Giuseppi Remuzzi, and Eberhard Ritz. These individuals manifested an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience in their respective areas of expertise, which was especially important to this newly minted editor. Indeed, their contributions along with those of Kirsten Madsen, who was later appointed senior deputy editor, to the quality of the editorial process were immeasurable. Also, I would be remiss in not acknowledging the extremely important role of the members of the editorial board and the dozens of additional referees who day in and day out provided thoughtful, well-written, and detailed reviews of manuscripts submitted to JASN. Their outstanding efforts maintained the integrity and quality of the peer-review process. An initial mini-crisis involving JASN arose somewhat unexpectedly at the ASN Spring Council meeting in 1996. The editor’s report included an artist’s rendering of a proposed new style and color for the cover. Furthermore, the editor proposed that greater emphasis be placed on “nephrology” in the title so that gradually, over the course of approximately 3 years, the journal might become known simply as “NEPHROLOGY” rather than JASN. Eventually, the cover would have read, “NEPHROLOGY, the official publication of the American Society of Nephrology.” The council did not accept the proposal, and, as they say, “the rest is history.” We will never know whether NEPHROLOGY could have replaced JASN in name recognition. The deep red or burgundy color was found acceptable and, incidentally, matched the color of the editor’s pick-up truck. A new feature introduced with the January 1997 issue was the “Milestones in Nephrology” series. We are indebted to Mark Knepper, who served as the feature editor. Our intent was to reprint scientific articles from any journal source that had provided a critical breakthrough in some area of nephrology, renal physiology, renal pathology, or a closely related discipline. To be considered for inclusion in this series, the article had to have been published in a peer-reviewed journal at least 20 years earlier, and one of the authors had to be alive and willing to provide a brief commentary about the original article. An individual working currently in the same or a closely related field was invited to comment on the significance of the findings and the subsequent impact of the article on the discipline. For the initial article in the series, the editors selected a publication by Carl W. Gottschalk and Margaret Mylle entitled “Micropuncture Study of the Mammalian Urinary Concentrating Mechanism: Evidence for the Countercurrent Hypothesis” that was published originally in 1959 in the American Journal of Physiology.1 The series concluded in December 2001 with a classic article by William B. Published online ahead of print. Publication date available at www.jasn.org.

Editorial Responsibilities

No abstract.

The Profession of Journal Editing

Scholars usually think of journal editors with some ambivalence. Editors are, first of all, gatekeepers. When one’s article is accepted, the image is of the kindly doorkeeper, opening the way to publication. When an article is rejected, the editor is the evil troll lurking under the bridge, barring the way. The editor’s second generally recognized role is that of emender: to some, a kindly mentor; to others, an interfering Miss Thistlebottom. Beyond that, many give little thought to what editors do. Yet often editors also direct a journal’s intellectual development, manage its finances, create its graphic image, design and manage its Web presence, and set the tone for its relationship with readers and contributors. And given the extent of their influence on academic disciplines and on the careers of their colleagues, it seems equally reasonable to consider what can be done to ensure that they are well prepared for their editorial responsibilities. Is the editing of scholarly journals a profession? At first blush, certainly not! Except for editors at university presses and other scholarly publishing institutions, few people edit full time or for their entire careers. Most journal editors serve part-time, for a few years.1 Moreover, few journal editors have any training for their positions. They are chosen by their colleagues or by a publisher because of their reputations as scholars, and preparation for the job usually involves little more than a meeting with the previous editor and the ritual handing down of files. (The sciences are an exception:

Editorial Responsibilities

Editorial Responsibilities

William L. Young, M.D., Recipient of the 2009 Excellence in Research Award

William L. Young, M.D., Recipient of the 2009 Excellence in Research Award

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction Sandra L. Beckett and Lissa Paul The final general issue of 2009 is also the final issue to be edited by Sandra and Lissa. We would like to extend our thanks to The Johns Hopkins University Press for their advice and support through the years of our tenure as editors. Much of the success of The Lion and the Unicorn has been due to the exceptionally high production values and editorial care provided by JHUP. Our thanks especially to Bill Breichner, publisher, Carol Hamblen, production manager, Alta Anthony, journals circulations manager, our wonderful production coordinator Kris Zgorski and our copyeditor, Mary Hashman—for all their good advice, careful editing, and patient attention to detail. We also want to take this opportunity to welcome the incoming editorial team, Karin Westman, Naomi Wood, and David Russell. Through 2009 they have been handling new submissions, and they assume complete editorial responsibility with the January 2010 issue. As we reflect on the September 2009 issue, we realize that it never ceases to amaze us that the essays chosen for general issues frequently have common threads and shared concerns, even when individual essays were not specifically selected for their coherence. That is once again the case for this issue. Most of the essays deal with consumerism, either economic or cultural (sometimes both). In the first two essays, the theme of commodification is interfaced with classic fairy tales. In “Rewriting ‘Little Red Riding Hood’: Victorian Fairy Tales and Mass-Visual Culture,” Laurence Talairach-Vielmas challenges the commodification of “Little Red Riding Hood” during the advent of mass visual culture through her analysis of Anne Thackeray Ritchie’s and Harriet Louisa Childe-Pemberton’s Victorian revisions of Perrault’s tale. Amanda K. Allen, in “The Cinderella-Makers: Postwar Adolescent Girl Fiction as Commodity Tales,” focuses on two “commodity tales” aimed at the teenage girl consumer of the 1940s and 1950s: Betty Cavanna’s Going on Sixteen and Mary Stolz’s Rosemary. Using the theories of Bourdieu and Irigaray, Allen examines these adolescent girl romance novels as Cinderella case [End Page v] studies in which money provides the “Right Dress” as the magical token of recognition. Whereas Allen considers post–World War II adolescent girl fiction as commodity tales, Jackie E. Stallcup, “Stamping the Coin of Character: Elsie Dinsmore and the Power of Christian Wealth,” examines Christian wealth in Martha Finley’s post–Civil War Elsie Dinsmore series. Although the previous essays point to the dangers of consumer culture, Stallcup convincingly argues that “Christian wealth” allows Finley’s protagonist to have a positive and powerful social impact in the post–Civil War South. Cultural capital is also the focus of Erica Hateley’s essay, “Magritte and Cultural Capital: The Surreal World of Anthony Browne.” Hateley argues that Browne’s appropriation of Magritte reflects a desire not so much to make art accessible to all, but to link his own work with that of a canonical cultural heritage. She points out that the action taken by the Magritte estate against Browne links cultural capital inextricably to economic capital. Like Hateley, who is almost alone in interrogating the politics of Browne’s artistic references, Joe Sutliff Sanders questions the generally accepted subversiveness of metafiction in children’s literature, at least in fiction about reader-book relationships. Through an analysis of China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun, he demonstrates instead metafiction’s ability to open spaces for critical reading. Artistic references and metafictional devices such as those examined in the Hateley and Sutcliff Sanders essays have both been seen as characteristics of crossover works. The final general essay, “Tove Jansson and the Crossover Continuum,” by Maija-Liisa Harju, argues convincingly that a philosophy of continuum between life stages is inherent in much crossover fiction. Harju’s analysis of Moominpapa at Sea, marketed for children, and The Summer Book, marketed for adults, shows how one author uses complex themes, often of an existential nature, to appeal to readers of all ages. Although Harju’s goal is not to consider the cultural capital of Finland’s national treasure, she does touch on the highly commodified nature of Jansson’s Moomin stories, which have a Disney-like status in some countries...

The Implications of Fraud in Medical and Scientific Research

Fraud is an important issue that affects research of both scientific and clinical fields because of its potential to adversely affect patient care. Fraud can take many forms, each with varying prevalence and implications. A number of ethical institutions have been created to investigate and regulate this malpractice. Using case examples, we describe the various forms of fraud and their potential implications. The increasing importance of editorial responsibility is highlighted and discussed. Finally, we suggest solutions for how to effectively regulate and eradicate this practise.

Editorial Responsibilities

Editorial Responsibilities

TH‐C‐211A‐02: Writing and Reviewing Medical Physics Papers

There is an art to writing a scientific paper so that it communicates accurately, succinctly, and comprehensively. Developing this art comes with experience, and sharing that experience with younger physicists is an obligation of senior scientists, especially those with editorial responsibilities for the journal. In this workshop, the preparation of a scientific manuscript will be dissected so participants can appreciate how each part is developed and then assembled into a complete paper. Then the review process for the paper will be discussed, including how to examine a paper and write an insightful and constructive review. Finally, we will consider the challenge of accommodating the concerns and recommendations of a reviewer in preparing a revision of the paper.A second feature of the workshop will be a discussion of the process of electronic submission of a paper for consideration by Medical Physics. The web‐based PeerX‐Press engine for manuscript submission and management will be examined, with attention to special features such as EPAPS and line referencing. Finally, new features of Medical Physics will be explained, such as Vision 20/20 manuscripts, Physics Letters and the standardized formatting of book reviews.Learning Objectives:1. Improve the participants' abilities to write a scientific manuscript.2. Understand the review process for Medical Physics manuscripts and how to participate in and benefit from it.3. Appreciate the many features of the PeerX‐Press electronic management process for Medical Physics manuscripts.4. Develop a knowledge of new features of Medical Physics.

Editorial: A note from the new Co-Editor

Editorial: A note from the new Co-Editor

Editorial Responsibilities

No abstract.

Editorial Transition Announcement

For 23 years, theNBER’s Tax Policy and the Economy conference has promoted a dialogue between the academic research community and policy analysts concernedwith taxation and government spending. The conferencewas launched in 1986 by Lawrence Summers,with enthusiastic support from NBER President Martin Feldstein. Four years later, when Summers became chief economist of the World Bank, leadership of the conference shifted to the late David Bradford. David’s role as Tax Policy and the Economy editor lasted only 1 year as a result of his appointment to serve as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. James Poterba became the organizer of this annual event in 1991. Now, after 18 years, the editorial responsibilities are passed once again. With Jim assuming the presidency of the NBER earlier this year, I am honored to accept the challenge of building on the strong legacy of the previous editors. The Tax Policy and the Economy series is one of the NBER’s most popular and productive conference series. I look forward to continuing this conference’s tradition of bringing together paperswith an immediate bearing on policy discussions and research that makes a long‐term contribution to important policy questions. I join with the many authors who have contributed to the last 18 Tax Policy and the Economy volumes, with the participants who have attended the annual meetings in Washington, and with the students and policy makers who have learned from reading the published volumes in thanking Jim for his distinguished service as the organizer of this series. We wish him all the best in his new and expanded role at the NBER.

Editorial Responsibilities

Editorial Responsibilities