BMJ Christmas issue

We publish a special two-week issue of The BMJ over Christmas and New Year. We are pleased to consider all kinds of articles, including reports of original research, for this issue.

The soul of the Christmas issue is originality. We don’t want to publish anything that resembles anything we’ve published before. While we welcome light-hearted fare and satire, we do not publish spoofs, hoaxes, or fabricated studies.

Submissions for the Christmas issue fall into two categories:

Research

While the subject matter may be more light-hearted, research papers in the Christmas issue adhere to the same high standards of novelty, methodological rigour, reporting transparency, and readability as apply in the regular issue. Christmas papers are subject to the same competitive selection and peer review process as regular papers.  Please see our general advice for authors of research articles for more details about article requirements.

Non-research

We welcome features, essays, comment, and other article types for the Christmas issue. Submissions are peer reviewed in the normal way but those we want to consider in more detail are usually held over for appraisal at one or more Christmas hanging committees in the autumn.

Christmas archive

For previously published Christmas papers see our Christmas archive, a 2016 article on Christmas highlights, and a data visualisation by Will Stahl-Timmins

Submissions

Please send us your article through the online submission system

The deadline for research submissions is 31 July

The deadline for non-research submission is 31 August

If you have an idea for the Christmas issue that you would like to discuss, or have any other questions, please contact Jenny Rasanathan (jrasanathan@bmj.com)