The Journal of Nutrition Vol. 128 No. 1 January 1998, pp. 1-1

EDITORIAL COMMENT

Editorial Announcement and Comments

Over the last eight years during Willard Visek's leadership, The Journal of Nutrition has made a number of changes in its efforts to most effectively meet the charge of the American Society for Nutritional Sciences (ASNS) to publish "reports of original research bearing on the nutrition of any organism." Most noticeable has been the move to an associate editor system whereby our Associate Editors function much like section editors in processing and evaluating manuscripts in their areas of expertise. The diversity in geographic location and scientific expertise of the current group, Peter Reeds at Baylor, Joanne Lupton at Texas A&M, Lindsay Allen at the University of California-Davis, Judith Storch at Rutgers, John Fernstrom at Pittsburgh, and Joe Prohaska at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, reflects the breadth of our Society. Their efforts are invaluable in assuring scientists who submit manuscripts that someone with first-hand knowledge in their area of interest is involved in the assessment of their research results. This sharing of editorial responsibility has worked well and will remain in effect for the foreseeable future.

A second major advancement for The Journal of Nutrition has been the development of an electronic version of the Journal distributed through Highwire Press at Stanford University. All of the 1997 issues of the Journal are available in this format which can be accessed at http://www.nutrition.org. New issues are posted at the same time the hard copy is mailed, and the Table of Contents is available 4-6 weeks earlier. The use of this medium is continually expanding and is currently accessed more than 10,000 times each month. Although access to the site will be restricted to individual subscribers or institutional licensees in the future, it is currently free. If you have not taken advantage of this new technology, please give it a try.

The Associate Editors and I are committed to making The Journal of Nutrition the journal of choice for the best manuscripts in the broad field of nutritional sciences. Good papers attract good papers, and two factors appear to be of critical importance: speed of publication and fairness in the review process. At the present time the median time for the publication of manuscripts is less than nine months, and we are publishing a substantial number of manuscripts within six to eight months of receipt. The major holdup in the process is the amount of time spent in the hands of the authors for revision. We are committed to decreasing the time from receipt of a manuscript to the initial response to authors so that papers get published rapidly when authors return revisions rapidly. There is probably nothing that irritates today's researchers more than a perception of unfair or incompetent reviews. The policy of The Journal of Nutrition will be to have each submitted manuscript assigned to the Associate Editor with the most expertise in its subject matter, who will then obtain a detailed scientific review from a member of our Editorial Board, as well as a second scientific review from an ad hoc reviewer chosen because of his or her specific expertise in the subject matter. Selection of good ad hoc reviewers with the appropriate expertise is one of the most important and also most time-consuming tasks of our Associate Editors. Over the next few months I will be asking ASNS members to agree to share responsibility for the quality of our Journal by volunteering to assess a few manuscripts per year in their particular areas of expertise.

The Associate Editors and I met for a day this past fall and made a recommendation for two changes in the types of manuscripts published by the Journal, and these changes have been approved by the ASNS Publications Management Committee. In the face of a rapidly expanding knowledge base in the nutritional sciences, nothing is more important than concise, up-to-date reviews. By March or April, 1998, the Journal will begin publishing a review series called "Recent Advances in Nutritional Sciences." These reviews will not be in-depth history-based reviews, rather they will briefly review the background in a research area and will concentrate on what has been happening in the last few years. They should be of value to both researchers and classroom instructors. The Associate Editors and I are committed to publishing 20-30 of these four-page reviews each year. As costs of publication increase, the editorial group has become increasingly concerned about the length of the average article published in The Journal of Nutrition. Although recent changes in format, font, and paper stock have succeeded in putting more easily readable information on a page, our articles tend to be longer than those in a number of the high quality, high impact basic biology journals we wish to compete with. Although the content of a manuscript sometimes justifies a more lengthy report, this is often not true. Therefore, in addition to standard Research Articles, manuscripts that concisely describe the results of studies that are complete but limited in scope may now be published as "Research Communications." These manuscripts will have a four-page limit in the Journal and an altered format. Authors may submit manuscripts in this format (see the Guide for Authors in this issue), or they may be asked by the Associate Editor during the review process to revise them to fit this format.

The Journal of Nutrition has had only eight Editors in the 70 years of its existence. The Associate Editors and I consider it a distinct honor to have been given the responsibility by the ASNS of managing our Journal and are committed to responding to the needs of ASNS members, and to a continued enhancement of the reputation of The Journal of Nutrition. The scientific publication enterprise has experienced serious strains over the last decade, and those strains will continue. The changes that were initiated over the last eight years by Willard Visek have positioned the Journal to meet the challenges that are before it as a society journal. Although the Editor of the Journal is guided by the ASNS Council and a Publications Management Committee, I invite all ASNS members and readers to communicate concerns and suggestions to me and to the Associate Editors.

Respectfully submitted,

J. W. Suttie
The Journal of Nutrition
11/4/97

0022-3166/98 $3.00 ©1998 American Society for Nutritional Sciences