Screening research papers by reading abstracts: Just how rapid is "eternal" review?

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7469.801-c

BMJ 2004;329:801 (2 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7469.801-c

Letter

Screening research papers by reading abstracts

Just how rapid is "eternal" review?

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

EDITOR—As a freelance medical writer and editor, I amalways fascinated by what catches the editor's eye and whatdrives decisions about whether a manuscript will be publishedor will perish. I thank Groves and Abbasi for confirming mysuspicion that editors start the same place we readers do—withthe abstract.¹ Given the number of articles that make it intopublication but fail to catch the reader's attention in theabstract, I shudder to think what the BMJ's daily duty editorsmust read if 15% to 25% of the articles don't make it past thatfirst brief review of the abstract.

But what really tickled me was the typo that read, "Daily dutyeditors...can reject manuscripts, send them for eternal review,or pass them to colleagues..." I suspect that "eternal" reviewis selected for those papers that are neither suitable for externalreview nor clearly destined for . . . [Full text of this article]

Jonathan N Latham, president

PharmaScribe, Skillman, NJ 08558, USA jlatham@pharmascribe.com