Medical research is part of humanity's survival strategies. Trauma and illness are daily threats to us and can lead to an unexpected direction in our lives. Presenting and spreading new scientific findings are important for advancing knowledge. The forums in which we present our research must meet the requirements of the highest objectivity. Scientific journals still play a major role and with ¨open access¨, science has become more readily available to the whole world. Social media are competitors in presentations, but the journals' editing and review of material to be presented ensures that the caveat on what is presented is even and high.
As the editor of a scientific journal, my task is to find quality in what has been submitted for assessment. International journals receive articles from researchers and clinics around the world and where many are not ¨native in English¨. Already here, the assessment can be stopped if the authors have not taken help with the text. If there are clear interesting findings but the text and compilation are weak, the reviewers' help can lead to a significant improvement of the manuscripts. The editor is therefore in need of interested and patient associate editors. However, the journals are above all dependent on knowledgeable reviewers in the field. Unfortunately, it has become more difficult to attract people to do reviewing because it is time consuming and unpaid. It is likely that the scientific journals will do something together to attract editing and reviewing in the future so that the quality can be maintained in a world of ¨fake news¨. Future ranking systems and / or¨reviewer professorship¨or similar can be temptations to get continued good assessments.
Important for the authors submitting their papers is that it comes with many responsibilities. The authors must be aware of good publication practices and ethical permissions are mandatory in studies involving humans and animals. Unfortunately, research misconduct seems to have been multiplied in recent years but methods to detect fraud has been refined [1,2]. What the journal needs to look for is the degree of fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in the submitted and reported research.
Letters to the editor are often of interest to print as it may start a discussion on an area of research. Such discussions may stimulate new research and could be attracting potential reviewers for the journals. The journal should be a scientific forum for vivid discussions more than just presenting science in pure text.
Most often a Reject is a final stop to be published in a certain journal. However, if the authors find that the reject comments are possible to follow in order to redo the manuscript, a discussion with the Editor is always possible. The authors, then, will not have a deadline to submit and could let the time work to produce a much better manuscript with even new or redone experiments. Unfortunately, many researcher are in too much haste to publish which is a risk for less good manuscripts and science.
The undersigned will discuss editing and reviewing in different points of view. The motto is ¨more science in print, more knowledge to convey! ¨ ….. or as Mark Twain wrote ¨¨Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint¨.
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1. Pellegrini PA. Science as a Matter of Honour: How Accused Scientists Deal with Scientific Fraud in Japan. Sci Eng Ethics. 2018 Aug;24(4):1297-1313.
2. George SL, Buyse M. Data fraud in clinical trials. Clin Investig (Lond). 2015;5(2):161-173
Open access represents a publishing model for scientific communication that makes research information available to readers at no cost. Thus, a scientific article published the open access model can be retrieved from anywhere, without paying a subscription or library.
The speaker is the current Editor-in-Chief of Osteoarthritis and Cartilage Open (https://www.journals.elsevier.com/osteoarthritis-and-cartilage-open) of the OARSI and was the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Orthopaedics, the basic science journal of ESSKA. He will present his thoughts on scientific writing, publication, and communication in the scientific community.
Advancing osteoarthritis research. Madry H. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage Open. Volume 1, Issues 1–2, November–December 2019, 100001
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocarto.2019.100001
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2665913119300019
Life is a journey. Madry H. J Exp Orthop. 2019 Jul 11;6(1):34. doi: 10.1186/s40634-019-0202-8. PMID: 31297619
https://jeo-esska.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40634-019-0202-8