Editorial Practices, Scientific Impact, and Scientific Quality

Recently, at one of the weekly editors' meetings where we go over the manuscripts that are ready for decision, it was noted that " Reviewers review manuscripts; editors review the reviews. " This summary succinctly encapsulates the editorial practices at the Journal of General Physiology ; it also reinforced earlier suggestions that it might be useful to both authors and reviewers to describe how the Journal is edited. We have done so by expanding the description of our editorial policies and practices in the online Information for Authors The mission of the Journal of General Physiology is to publish original work of the highest quality that elucidates basic biological, chemical, or physical mechanisms of broad physiological signifi cance. This expectation— that the articles provide mechanistic insight—has served the Journal well; it also has been cause for much uncertainty , mostly pertaining to what actually constitutes mechanistic insight? The brief response " You know when you see it " is not particularly helpful because the answer depends on the context—being different in " mature " as compared with " emergent " fi elds, for example. The editors therefore invest a considerable effort into evaluating whether, or not, a manuscript provides new understanding and mechanistic insight. An important advantage of publishing in the Journal of General Physiology over many other journals therefore is that the editorial evaluations are made by active scientists. The editors take considerable pride in our involvement in all stages of the review process—from the initial evaluation of a manuscript, to choosing appropriate reviewers , to evaluating the reviewers' comments, to communicating decisions to authors and responding to the authors' queries about the decisions. The emphasis on new, mechanistic insight and understanding means that articles published in the Journal tend to be long, because such articles often cannot be compressed into the procrustean formats of some " vanity " journals without undue loss of information. The Journal has proud tradition of providing a venue where authors are able to convey their work, its signifi cance, and its mechanistic implications, in full. The emphasis on mechanistic insight and the associated scientifi c rigor also means that articles published in the Journal tend to have a very long shelf-life, a factor not currently considered in the calculus of " impact. " The issue of impact is a broad problem and diffi cult to resolve. The editorial by Rossner et al. in …