BMJ  2004;328 (24 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7446.0-f

Editor's choice

A commentary on commentaries

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Doctors don't worry whether they will continue to have jobs. No matter how successful they may be, illness, disease, pain, and suffering will continue. Medical publishers, in contrast, fret about the future. The people who make their living in the space between authors and readers—that is, editors, publishers, librarians, and various other more mysterious types—may all be rendered redundant as authors go directly to readers courtesy of the world wide web. One defence we have is peer review, but it's a poor, shivering beast—albeit a holy one. Another defence is to "add value," and this is one reason why we publish commentaries—wise words that we commission to complement the original studies that are submitted to us for free. Perhaps because our anxiety about our future is increasing we have in this issue three commentaries, one of which is almost as long as the study on which it comments.

Commentaries often . . . [Full text of this article]

Richard Smith, editor

rsmith@bmj.com


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