The BMJ's mission is to lead the debate on health, and to engage, inform, and stimulate doctors, researchers and other health professionals in ways that will improve outcomes for patients. We aim to help doctors to make better decisions.

To achieve these aims we publish original research articles, review and educational articles, letters, and articles commenting on the clinical, scientific, social, political, and economic factors affecting health.

We are delighted to receive articles for publication in all of these categories - from doctors and others.

We can publish only about 7% of the 7000-8000 articles we receive each year, but we aim to give quick and authoritative decisions. For all types of article the average time from submission to first decision is two to three weeks and from acceptance to publication eight to 10 weeks. These times are usually shorter for original research articles. We reject about two thirds of all submissions without sending them for external peer review, but many authors tell us they appreciate quick decisions that allow them to submit their work elsewhere without delay.

Open access

Every research article published in the BMJ is immediately accessible on bmj.com through open access, to everyone at no charge.

The full text of all research articles is also sent, without further intervention from the author, to PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine's full text archive, which makes it fully accessible without delay. This means that the BMJ immediately fulfils the requirements of the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and other funding bodies to make publicly funded research freely available to all.

Open peer review

We ask reviewers to sign their reports and declare any competing interests on any manuscripts we send them. Reviewers advise the editors, who make the final decision (aided by an editorial manuscript committee meeting for some articles, including original research).

Who else advises the editors?

The editors receive invaluable support and advice on policy and practice from the BMJ international editorial advisory board and the BMJ ethics committee.

Advice on writing, laying out, and submitting articles

For fully detailed advice please follow the links in the index at the top left of this page. The main points, however, are here:

• where to submit an article
• how to prepare an article: general requirements for all manuscripts
• what to write: advice on preparing the different article types
• how to report research: advice on writing and submitting original research articles
• policy on all aspects of transparency in conducting research, and in preparing and submitting manuscripts
• submitting rapid responses (letters)
• what will happen to your article: our peer review process
  

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