Annals of Botany 93: 1, 2004
© 2004 Annals of Botany Company
EDITORIAL
The Annals of Botany, one of the oldest botanical journals in continuous publication, publishes eclectic and innovative papers, both on-line and in print, in almost every sphere of plant biology. Its policy has been and remains to improve and develop all aspects of the Journal’s provision for the benefit of authors and readers alike. In doing so, it aims to meet fully their demands for a high level of originality in scientific content, top quality reproduction and prompt publication with wide accessibility. Annals of Botany faces these challenges by adopting new technologies and procedures of evaluation, management and production that are highly international, electronically based and increasingly selective. This approach is leading to a steady increase in the number of papers submitted to the Journal year by year and in its Impact Factor (currently 1.476).
During her 7 years as Assistant Editor, Dr Judy Naylor was instrumental in transforming our manuscript-handling procedures from a simple redistribution of the papers received into an efficient electronically-based processing system onto which were added high standards of technical and language editing. Her successor, Dr David Frost, is continuing in this tradition and, together with the Editorial Assistant Mrs Elaine Atkinson, is now charged with implementing a web-based system of online manuscript submission and handling. We have adopted the latest ScholarOne system (Manuscript Central v3.1). This has been designed to be of maximum convenience to authors, referees and editors alike while helping us to improve upon our already tight schedules for manuscript evaluation and processing. Despite this increasing centralization we have recently re-organized and expanded our system of regional Editorial Offices. These are located in Australia, Canada, Japan, Germany, and the UK and ensure that regional contacts will be retained. A member of the Editorial Board is appointed to each of these offices and is able to deal with queries and problems at first hand while taking responsibility for arranging financial support from Annals of Botany for lectures and conferences in their region.
The Editorial Board of Annals of Botany overall is currently made up of twenty-four editors drawn from seven countries. They are, between them, responsible for prosecuting rigorous evaluation procedures that select approximately 35 % of submissions for inclusion in the Journal. This ensures that we publish only papers that contribute notably to a basic understanding of plant biological processes or make significant progress in taxonomy, methodology or in practical or strategic aspects of agriculture, horticulture and environmental management. Following peer review and revisions, the papers that editors accept are listed almost at once on our web site under AOBFirstAlert along with the corresponding author’s contact details. Approximately 5–6 weeks later the papers are published sequentially on our web site in final format under AOBPreview, each paper carrying a unique identifying number (doi). The article together with its doi and date of electronic publication are then carried forward to publication on the web site in the standard monthly-paginated format after about 10 weeks from acceptance. This publication takes place in the last week of the month before the official month of issue, at which time the printed version is also mailed to subscribers. These measures allow us to make content available to the readership at the earliest possible times.
Recent innovations include the introduction of ‘INVITED REVIEWS’ to complement the successful short reviews we publish as ‘BOTANICAL BRIEFINGS’. Both types of article are now available, without charge to non-subscribers, from the Annals of Botany home page (www.aob.oupjournals.org). The journal continues to offer appropriate use of colour without charging authors, and 100 free reprints (or PDF access) along with a complimentary copy of the entire issue in which their article appears. In recognition of the importance of abstracts for highlighting the essential contents of papers we now encourage each author to supply a formally structured abstract with bullet points within a generous overall length of 300 words. In addition, the content of papers will continue to be encapsulated in 60-word illustrated summaries collected together each month under CONTENTSnapshots. Four articles are also selected by Professor John Bryant for a more detailed synopsis to be found under CONTENTSelect. These developments have gone hand in hand with a thorough overhaul of the Instructions to Authors that lay emphasis on electronic or web-based submission while not excluding more traditional means of submitting manuscripts.
The positioning of Annals of Botany at the forefront of modern botanical publishing is the outcome of much dedicated hard work by many people, including editors, our many referees (listed under the International Review Board), office staff, our managers (The Annals of Botany Company) and our publisher (Oxford University Press). But their efforts would count for little without the willingness of authors to continue to send us their high calibre papers for evaluation. To the many authors who make this most important of contributions to Annals of Botany I extend our deepest appreciation. It is essential that we serve your interests effectively, and increasingly so in the future. To help achieve this end, practical suggestions for further improvements to the Journal are encouraged from authors, from end users and librarians. All proposals will be given due consideration and used to drive forward the continuing evolution of Annals of Botany.
Mike Jackson
Chief Editor
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