Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, 11: 1945
DOI: 10.1111/jth.12426
EDITORIAL
Words, words, words F . R . R O S E N D A A L * † and P . H . R E I T S M A * ‡ *Department of Thrombosis and Hemostasis, Leiden University Medical Center; †Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Leiden University Medical Center; and ‡Einthoven Laboratory for Experimental Vascular Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands
To cite this article: Rosendaal FR, Reitsma PH. Words, words, words. J Thromb Haemost 2013; 11: 1945.
‘The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?’ (Ecclesiastes 6:11) It is interesting to note how many manuscripts that are submitted to the Journal have a word count between 4900 and 5000 words, with a left-skewed right-truncated distribution. It is likely that this has to do with the maximum allowed word count of 5000 words rather than the optimal number required to convey the message of the paper. Indeed, authors sometimes warmly plead for some leeway, and some even argue that for specific subjects more words are needed than for others. Word count is language dependent: if we published scientific papers in more efficient languages than English, the word count would be substantially less. This would particularly be the case for Latin, but to a lesser extent also if we changed to Dutch, although the words would on average contain more letters. Despite this, we will not impose a change from English to another language, but we have put some changes into effect in an attempt to come closer to the optimum word count for each paper. As can be seen from the new guidelines for authors that are now online on the JTH site, we have first of all changed the way the words are counted. Until now, this included title, author names and the addendum and acknowledgements. From now on, the word count will apply to the text only (i.e. from the first word of the Introduction to the last word of the Discussion). The maximum allowable number of words is set at 4000 for original articles and 5000 for reviews. This implies, on average, a 10% increase in the maximum allowable word count as compared with the current requirements. This will serve to come closer to the optimal word count for papers that indeed require a bit more space. To balance this with papers with a content that can be conveyed in
© 2013 International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis
less words than the current or new maximum, we will request reviewers and associate editors to explicitly indicate, when a paper passes the first evaluation, by what percentage a paper should be shortened. Our goal is to achieve a distribution of word counts that look more Gaussian than now, centered around the current maximum. Besides providing a level playing ground this new word counting method has the advantage that authors no longer are tempted to gain words by shortening the sections on authors’ contribution and potential conflicts of interest: these can now be of unrestricted length. We have amended the instructions for conflicts of interest, and expect authors to disclose all financial relationships of all authors with commercial entities in the biomedical field over the last 5 years. It is not up to the authors to decide which potential conflicts are relevant or may have influenced them, but to the readership. Some papers are of a technical nature and require substantial space to fully explain the methods or the dataset: this can be done by supplementary material that will be available on the JTH website. This material may contain tables and figures, or, in the case of meta-analyses, full lists of references and search strategies. The supplementary material should not become a paper in itself, so no text is allowed. For SSC papers, however, the Journal publishes the official SSC communication, which may be supported by unlimited supplementary materials. Finally, to encourage the concept of less is more, we will introduce a section of Brief Reports, which are short original papers of 2000 words, with only a few references and no online supplementary material. Previously, JTH published such concise articles as Letters to the Editor, but we will limit the latter to true correspondence. Quality demands for Brief Reports will be no less than for full-length original papers, but they will be dealt with quickly and viewed with extreme kindness.
DOI: 10.1111/jth.12426
EDITORIAL
Words, words, words F . R . R O S E N D A A L * † and P . H . R E I T S M A * ‡ *Department of Thrombosis and Hemostasis, Leiden University Medical Center; †Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Leiden University Medical Center; and ‡Einthoven Laboratory for Experimental Vascular Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands
To cite this article: Rosendaal FR, Reitsma PH. Words, words, words. J Thromb Haemost 2013; 11: 1945.
‘The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?’ (Ecclesiastes 6:11) It is interesting to note how many manuscripts that are submitted to the Journal have a word count between 4900 and 5000 words, with a left-skewed right-truncated distribution. It is likely that this has to do with the maximum allowed word count of 5000 words rather than the optimal number required to convey the message of the paper. Indeed, authors sometimes warmly plead for some leeway, and some even argue that for specific subjects more words are needed than for others. Word count is language dependent: if we published scientific papers in more efficient languages than English, the word count would be substantially less. This would particularly be the case for Latin, but to a lesser extent also if we changed to Dutch, although the words would on average contain more letters. Despite this, we will not impose a change from English to another language, but we have put some changes into effect in an attempt to come closer to the optimum word count for each paper. As can be seen from the new guidelines for authors that are now online on the JTH site, we have first of all changed the way the words are counted. Until now, this included title, author names and the addendum and acknowledgements. From now on, the word count will apply to the text only (i.e. from the first word of the Introduction to the last word of the Discussion). The maximum allowable number of words is set at 4000 for original articles and 5000 for reviews. This implies, on average, a 10% increase in the maximum allowable word count as compared with the current requirements. This will serve to come closer to the optimal word count for papers that indeed require a bit more space. To balance this with papers with a content that can be conveyed in
© 2013 International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis
less words than the current or new maximum, we will request reviewers and associate editors to explicitly indicate, when a paper passes the first evaluation, by what percentage a paper should be shortened. Our goal is to achieve a distribution of word counts that look more Gaussian than now, centered around the current maximum. Besides providing a level playing ground this new word counting method has the advantage that authors no longer are tempted to gain words by shortening the sections on authors’ contribution and potential conflicts of interest: these can now be of unrestricted length. We have amended the instructions for conflicts of interest, and expect authors to disclose all financial relationships of all authors with commercial entities in the biomedical field over the last 5 years. It is not up to the authors to decide which potential conflicts are relevant or may have influenced them, but to the readership. Some papers are of a technical nature and require substantial space to fully explain the methods or the dataset: this can be done by supplementary material that will be available on the JTH website. This material may contain tables and figures, or, in the case of meta-analyses, full lists of references and search strategies. The supplementary material should not become a paper in itself, so no text is allowed. For SSC papers, however, the Journal publishes the official SSC communication, which may be supported by unlimited supplementary materials. Finally, to encourage the concept of less is more, we will introduce a section of Brief Reports, which are short original papers of 2000 words, with only a few references and no online supplementary material. Previously, JTH published such concise articles as Letters to the Editor, but we will limit the latter to true correspondence. Quality demands for Brief Reports will be no less than for full-length original papers, but they will be dealt with quickly and viewed with extreme kindness.
