Submission to multiple journals to reduce publication times: What about the readers?

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7491.603-a

BMJ 2005;330:603 (12 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7491.603-a

Letter

Submission to multiple journals to reduce publication times

What about the readers?

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

EDITOR—None of the responses to the article by Torgersonet al has mentioned readers.^1
2 All have assumed the prime purposeof journals is to act as the final link in the research chain.As a former editor of a peer reviewed general clinical journal,I saw things differently: what I wanted to publish were usefulmessages, often wrapped up in scientific papers, for my readersto take home.

This simple desire was frustrated by many things—the mostblatant being its distortion by the system of impact factorsand the dependence on them (at least in the United Kingdom)of the research assessment exercise. Papers that would helpmy readers look after their patients better were therefore insteadoften sent to journals with far fewer appropriately targetedreaders, simply because the impact factor was higher.

Researchers were, no doubt, satisfied with this, but it performeda disservice to readers . . . [Full text of this article]

Harvey Marcovitch, freelance medical editor

Balscote, Oxfordshire OX15 6JW h.marcovitch@btinternet.com

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Submission to multiple journals: a method of reducing time to publication?: David J Torgerson, Joy Adamson, Sarah Cockayne, Jo Dumville, and Emily Petherick
BMJ 2005 330: 305-307. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]