Message from the incoming editor

MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR

Message from the Incoming Editor

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eginning on October 1, 2013, we will start the transition of editorial teams at Annals of Neurology. The Editors of Annals are appointed by the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society for four year terms. The terms are often renewed once, but like the President of the United States, no matter how good a job the Editors have been doing, they have to step down after eight years. The current Editor-in-Chief, Steve Hauser, the Executive Vice Editor Clay Johnston, and their team of Associate Editors at UCSF, including Donna Ferriero, Andy Josephson, Dan Lowenstein, Bob Messing, and Jorge Oksenberg, have done a remarkable job in leading the Annals to new heights over the previous eight years, and they deserve the gratitude of both the American Neurological Association and the Child Neurology Society, as well as all of the readers of Annals. However, by the time you read this issue, the new Editorial team will have begun their duties, assuming full editorial duties for all new manuscripts that are submitted to Annals of Neurology after October 1st; the UCSF team will continue to take editorial responsibility for all remaining manuscripts in the Annals system (submitted before October 1st) through the end of 2013. In coming editorials we will be discussing changes in Annals itself. Meanwhile, you will notice a few changes in the Annals website, and in the Manuscript Central website that provides editorial software for the Annals. First, in the Annals website, we have posted a new set of Author Guidelines for submitting papers to Annals (available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/ 10.1002/(ISSN)1531-8249/homepage/ForAuthors.html). There are a number of small changes that are nonetheless important for submissions, so we encourage authors to read the new Guidelines. The largest change will be with respect to Supplementary Materials. Our experience is that the Supplementary Material often is not reviewed as critically as the main manuscript, resulting in the posting of large amounts of information that has not received adequate vetting. To avoid this, we will ask authors to include all relevant information in the body of the manuscript, and only permit as Supplementary Files large tables, videos, or other bulky items that are too large to incorporate into the main manuscript. We will also ask authors to submit magenta-green copies of all images

that use red-green fluorescence. (The reason for this latter change is that 6% of all males are red-green color blind, and cannot distinguish this color combination. We encourage submitting fluorescence images as magentagreen instead, but will publish red-green images if they are accompanied by magenta-green copies as Supplementary Files. Instructions for preparing magenta-green images are included in the Author Guidelines.) In the Manuscript Central website for Annals, you will be asked to select a reviewing editor. This can be any one of the Associate Editors, or the Editor-in-Chief, and should be chosen based upon our specialties. For convenience, we are listing the entire group below. Your paper will be reviewed by two Editors. As in the past, because Annals receives almost ten times as many papers as it can publish, about half of papers will be returned to authors after review by the two Editors. This will shorten the time necessary for the authors to resubmit the paper to another forum. If the Editors find that the manuscript is of interest to Annals, it will be sent out to at least two reviewers. The reviewing Editor will then bring the paper to our weekly Editorial meeting for discussion by all of the Editors, and to determine if the paper has sufficient priority to be published in Annals. All papers submitted to the Annals will also be examined by the Editors of our sister journal, Annals Clinical and Translational Neurology (ACTN). If Annals cannot publish the paper, but the Editors of ACTN feel that the paper may be of interest to that journal, the authors will be asked if they would like the paper to be considered by ACTN. Because ACTN is considered “inhouse,” its Editors will have access to the entire review file electronically. While the editorial decision-making for ACTN will be independent of Annals, the availability of the earlier reviews will generally save a round of review. Finally the new Annals office will be at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and the address and email contact are given in the new Author Guidelines. The office will be managed by Adam Gordon, who will be the contact person for authors who have questions or problems; Adam can be reached at aon@bidmc. harvard.edu. We look forward to maintaining Annals at the level that Dr. Hauser and his team have so ably established in the past eight years. C 2013 American Neurological Association V A9

ANNALS

of Neurology

Clifford B. Saper, MD, PhD Editor-in-Chief Designate Reviewing Editors for Annals of Neurology and Their Specialties, Effective October 1, 2013 Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD Specialties: Cognitive neurology, neuroimaging, neurorehabilitation, brain stimulation/plasticity Scott Pomeroy, MD Specialties: Pediatric neurology, neuro-oncology Igor Koralnik, MD Specialty: Neuro-immunology and infectious disease Seward Rutkove, MD Specialty: Neuromuscular neurology, bioengineering Martin Samuels, MD Specialty: Evidence-based neurological practice, interactions of general medicine and neurology

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Clifford Saper, MD, PhD Specialties: Sleep, neural systems (autonomic, pain, auditory, vestibular, taste, smell, etc.) Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD Specialties: Stroke, neuroimaging, rehabilitation/ stroke recovery, brain plasticity Donald L. Schomer, MD Specialties: Epilepsy and clinical neurophysiology Christopher A. Walsh Specialties: Neurogenetics, cortical development, epilepsy Anne Young, MD, PhD Specialties: Neurodegenerative disorders, movement disorders, neurogenetics

DOI: 10.1002/ana.24022

Volume 74, No. 3