Rapid responses are electronic letters to the editor. They enable our users to debate issues raised in articles published on thebmj.com. Although a selection of rapid responses will be included online and in print as readers' letters, their first appearance online means that they are published articles. If you need the url (web address) of an individual response, perhaps for citation purposes, simply click on the response headline and copy the url from the browser window. Letters are indexed in PubMed.
Yes, by all means publish research that "could improve our health", but why not say so, rather than waffling about research that "has the potential to impact on" health? Something that "impacts on" health could just as easily make it worse.
It is a general trend in English usage (American more than British) that the noun "effects" is being replaced by "impacts", and the verb "affects" is being replaced by "impacts on". (1) It does not make the language any clearer, and dilutes the specific meaning of impact (forcible contact).
1 Goodman NW. Fashion in medicine and language: inferences from titles and abstracts of articles listed in PubMed. The Write Stuff 2011; 20(1): 39-42.
Re: Publishing your research study in the BMJ
Yes, by all means publish research that "could improve our health", but why not say so, rather than waffling about research that "has the potential to impact on" health? Something that "impacts on" health could just as easily make it worse.
It is a general trend in English usage (American more than British) that the noun "effects" is being replaced by "impacts", and the verb "affects" is being replaced by "impacts on". (1) It does not make the language any clearer, and dilutes the specific meaning of impact (forcible contact).
1 Goodman NW. Fashion in medicine and language: inferences from titles and abstracts of articles listed in PubMed. The Write Stuff 2011; 20(1): 39-42.
Competing interests: No competing interests