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Current Products and Practice |
Department of Orthodontics, Division of Child Dental Health, Leeds Dental Institute, Clarendon Way, Leeds, U.K.
Today, research is increasingly scrutinized: if funding is required, grant awarding bodies look at applications to see if they feel they are worth supporting; governments indicate areas that they specifically wish to have investigated and like to see direct clinical applications. Universities, too, are faced with increasing pressures to get as much work as possible published in quality journals in these days of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). As a result of the RAE, departments are competing more and more with each other to gain a higher position in the research ‘league’, since the RAE results have significant effects on their funding and status. Furthermore, as clinical governance sets in, one means of demonstrating clinical worth is by publishing results of studies undertaken to see how one compares with others, i.e. to show whether you are doing a good job. Consequently, whether you are a clinician, academic, or both, it is essential that when an article is submitted for publication, it is sent to the right place for that particular paper.
The following tabulated information is therefore intended to be an ‘at a glance guide’ to some of the things which it maybe helpful to consider when getting an article ready for possible publication. For example, how does one assess what a ‘quality’ journal is? One increasingly encountered means is to use the ‘impact factor’ of a journal. This is defined by the Journal Citation Reports as: ‘... a measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year. The impact factor helps you to evaluate a journal's relative importance, especially when it is compared to others in the same field.’ It is calculated by ’dividing the number of current citations to articles published in the two previous years by the total number of articles published in the two previous years', although a 5-year period may sometimes be used instead. Thus, the larger the number, the higher (and better) the impact factor of a journal. Whilst this maybe of some help and value, nevertheless, it is open to interpretation and can be influenced by, for instance, subject, language, journal history, and format, as well as publishing schedule. Consequently, for a relatively specialist field such as Orthodontics, it may actually be virtually impossible for a journal to achieve a high impact factor. As a result of all this, it is probably not helpful to consider it in isolation. Furthermore, there is little point in sending a paper to a journal with a high impact factor, but which is unlikely to have a readership interested in it as the paper may not be accepted for publication.
Space constraints do not allow for all journals which maybe of interest to orthodontists to be covered, so only some of the main English language Orthodontic journals are included here. In addition, the reader should be aware that the information is not exhaustive—you must still refer to the information/guidance for authors/contributors in the particular journal you are considering. By the way, if dealing with the World Wide Web is confusing, referral to the article by Benson (1997) on ‘Orthodontics on the World Wide Web’ might be helpful. However, I would like to thank the editors of the various journals I approached for their help in supplying and confirming (or correcting) the information given in the details which follow. The information covered in Table 1
has been abstracted from:
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Finally, there are some new developments, which might be of interest to readers. The Angle Orthodontist stated that the journal has a broad international following and have cut their backlog of articles to the minimum. In the year 2000, a new editor, Professor Robert J. Isaacson of Richmond, Virginia will take over from Dr David L. Turpin, who will then become editor of American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics. Another U.S.A.-based journal, the Journal of Clinical Orthodontics, wished to emphasize that they consider the needs of the orthodontic reader to be first and foremost in all editorial decisions.
In the U.K., as part of the continuing evolution of the British Journal of Orthodontics, to reflect the changes in the discipline, readers' needs, and its increasingly international distribution of submitted papers, the journal has been renamed in March 2000 Journal of Orthodontics. It is to be relaunched at the American and World meeting in Chicago, in Spring 2000. As well as a new name, it is also hoped it will move gradually to full colour, although the separate clinical, scientific, and features sections will remain.
The pressures applied to orthodontics and developments within the speciality are likely to increase as indicated earlier and for these reasons, journals will likewise develop in response to the demands of their readership. For example, on-line versions of journals are now readily available, and will probably be used more and more as readers begin to appreciate the value of such tools (links from references to Medline abstracts to name but one). Clearly then, this is an area which needs to be watched in order to get the most out of the scientific literature.
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