© 2002 American Thoracic Society
The Official Copy of AJRCCM Is Posted but Not PrintedAudiobooks have many attributes, including a better showcasing of an author's skill for euphony and rhythm. On hearing the dulcet Dublin tones of Jim Norton's reading of Ulysses, the listener appreciates Joyce's genius for the music of words in a way that a reader cannot (1). But audiobooks are usually abridged, and the listener misses much of value that a reader can see—large passages of Molly Bloom's galloping soliloquy are missing from the audio version of Ulysses. And so it is with AJRCCM: the reader of the paper version is missing much that is found in the unabridged online copy. AJRCCM went online in 1997. Like most periodicals, we initially mounted electronic images of the pages in the paper journal. In 2000, we shed our paper exoskeleton and started to post material not appearing in the paper copy. The extra content has increased progressively, culminating in Articles in Press in July 2002. Manuscripts are now posted on our Web site within days of acceptance (before copyediting or proofreading). Readers of the online journal learn of the latest research months before it appears in the paper journal. And authors can secure priority for their research earlier than is possible in the paper journal. For authors submitting manuscripts to AJRCCM, the biggest change has been the introduction of the Online Repository (2). The Repository was introduced to satisfy the irreconcilable expectations of readers (who want brief articles) and reviewers (who want greater detail). Because the expectations differ most for the Methods section, we curtailed the length of that section in the paper journal to 500 words and encouraged authors to post additional detail in the Repository. Unfortunately, this change gave rise to misunderstanding on the part of authors and reviewers. Some formed an impression that AJRCCM places a low value on experimental methodology. Nothing could be further from the truth. At AJRCCM, we consider the Methods section to be the most important part of a research article. The primary reason behind the introduction of the Repository was to encourage authors to present more, not less, detail about their methodology. I emphasized this point in the editorial that accompanied the launch of the Repository (2). At present, more manuscripts than ever before are rejected because methodological detail is judged insufficient. Reviewers for AJRCCM know that shortage of space is no longer a defensible excuse for failing to provide a detailed description of experimental methods. Let me emphasize that it has become very risky—and inadvisable—to submit a research article to AJRCCM without including a detailed Methods section for the Web Repository. When writing additional text for the Repository, authors may take one of two approaches. The text in the Repository may be completely different from the Methods section in the paper journal; in this case, it serves as an appendix to the text in the paper journal. Alternatively, the text in the Repository may repeat some or all of the sentences included in Methods for the paper journal if duplication facilitates comprehension. The option for posting supplemental text in the Repository is not confined to the Methods section, and authors of a research article can include tables, figures, and additional discussion (3–5). Moreover, authors of a review article can submit two versions: a short manuscript for the paper journal; and an extended manuscript for the Repository, which repeats some or all of the sentences included in the short manuscript. Journals such as the British Medical Journal have been publishing abridged articles in the paper journal and expanded articles on their Web site for some time (6). We have also begun to use the Repository for presenting material that cannot be communicated in the print journal, such as sound and video clips (7). Serious readers may regard multimedia clips as gimmicks, as were photographs when first introduced into scientific journals. The clips undergo thorough peer review in the way of all submitted material. A great deal of scientific information is communicated visually, in the form of photomicrographs, tracings, and models, as opposed to moveable alphanumeric type. Visual patterns can suggest important new properties that cannot be measured in numbers (8). For example, the black crosses on the X-ray crystallographs of DNA provided the vital clue to its spiral structure (9). Watching a video clip enlarges the scope of science, bringing us one step closer to the witnessing of an experiment. It enables moving images and tracings to speak for themselves, facilitating a primary goal of science: to achieve the maximum degree of consensus across the broadest range of expert opinion. Communication by multimedia also reveals the hermeneutic element of science. The future for scientific journals is not what it used to be. Electronic technology offers unprecedented vistas for enhancing scientific communication once we escape the blinkers of a paper mindset. Increasing amounts of the official content will appear in the posted journal but not in the paper journal. The reader who wants all will have to log on. REFERENCES
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