Help us with ELPS

Coinciding with our theme issue on the impact of new technologies on medicine and medical journals, we asked readers' advice on how we should shorten articles for publication in the paper journal. (The full article would continue to be published on the journal's website.)

We believe that this model of publishing, which we call "ELPS" ( for electronic-long; paper-short), will address the sometimes conflicting needs of specialist and generalist readers.

To help readers come to their decision, we asked the following questions:

What matters to you when you read a paper?

Is it readability or detail on methodology?

Should we provide as much information as possible to allow critical appraisal, or should we focus on clear presentation?

When shortening articles for the paper journal, what do you think we should give priority to?

And lest readers thought that combining readability with appraisability was easy, we alerted them to what reports of randomised controlled trials needed to include to be properly appraisable. [click here]

As well as giving readers the opportunity to send us comments we had two questionnaires.

Questionnaire 1

Rate the relative importance in shortened articles of readability and appraisability.

number of votes counted: [ 420 ]

Questionnaire 2

Which of nine short versions of the same long article do you prefer?
[Click here for results.]

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

eBMJ - a journey into nowhere: Roger A Fisken
bmj.com, 13 Nov 1999 [Full text]
SHORT & SWEET.: David C Prior
bmj.com, 13 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Readability and Appraisability are not mutually exclusive.: C Mary Anderson
bmj.com, 13 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Great idea!: Adam Jacobs
bmj.com, 12 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Re: Great idea!: Linda Semple
bmj.com, 12 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Good Idea: John H Clark
bmj.com, 12 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Stick to paper: Jonathan Waite
bmj.com, 14 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Re: Readability and Appraisability are not mutually exclusive.: Paula Bolton-Maggs
bmj.com, 14 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Can''t fit a point on your straight line.: Ed Cooper
bmj.com, 14 Nov 1999 [Full text]
"Readability": Ursula Butler
bmj.com, 15 Nov 1999 [Full text]
ELPS - why be so prescriptive?: Ruth Livingstone
bmj.com, 15 Nov 1999 [Full text]
To attract readers readability first: Hasan Shareef Ahmed
bmj.com, 15 Nov 1999 [Full text]
need to appraise to assess whether relelvant to practice: Judy Murty
bmj.com, 15 Nov 1999 [Full text]
You don''t understand consumer magazines: Roger Pebody
bmj.com, 15 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Financial backer: Julio Castanheira
bmj.com, 15 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Computers do not make good bedtime books: Peter Devitt
bmj.com, 16 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Readability versus sexiness?: Brian Stickle
bmj.com, 16 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Good idea, but get it right next time.: Peter Furness
bmj.com, 17 Nov 1999 [Full text]
ELPS Great idea?: David Taylor
bmj.com, 17 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Tried and tested: Jonathan Treml
bmj.com, 18 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Great idea,-go ahed!: G A Balint
bmj.com, 18 Nov 1999 [Full text]
ELPS, yes please: Brian O'Mahony
bmj.com, 19 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Good idea.: George Horner
bmj.com, 20 Nov 1999 [Full text]
will ELPS be as durable as the Rosetta stone: Joseph G Murphy
bmj.com, 19 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Library viewpoint: A Elkerton
bmj.com, 25 Nov 1999 [Full text]