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The Journal of Neuroscience Journal Club The purpose of Journal Club articles is to provide scholarly reviews of papers recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience. Journal Club articles are written by students and post-docs, and are meant to be accessible by a broad range of young neuroscientists. Requirements We encourage Journal Club submissions that represent a group effort, but all authors must be graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, or the equivalent. Authors may publish no more than one Journal Club in a 12-month period. Journal Club articles must be submitted within 2 months of the publication of the highlighted article. Authors are strongly encouraged to mailto:JN_Features{at}sfn.org before beginning to write a Journal Club to reserve the article they wish to discuss. Once an article has been reserved, no other Journal Club submissions discussing the same article will be considered until after a decision regarding the original requester's submission has been made. Authors of Journal Club submissions are subject to the same guidelines as reviewers concerning conflict of interest. In particular, they should not be from the same institution or have any real or apparent conflict of interest with the authors of the article, for example having recently collaborated with the authors or having done research that addresses the same question treated in the article. For more details, see: Guidelines for Responsible Conduct Regarding Scientific Communication. Content and Format In general, Journal Club articles should have three components: a short overview of the topic and questions addressed in the reviewed paper, a critical review of the key findings, and a brief summary of the significance of the paper. In particular, what has been learned about neural mechanisms should be discussed. The Journal Club must offer more than a summary of what was stated in the original article. For example, it might present important caveats, alternative explanations of the data, or a distinct interpretation of the results in the context of work that the author did not discuss. Presentation of unpublished work or modeling results is not acceptable, however. We expect that authors of Journal Clubs will be working on a topic related to that of the reviewed paper, and thus will be familiar with the experimental approach, but Journal Clubs should not focus on the author's own work. We encourage critical reviews, but comments must be accurate, well-reasoned, and diplomatic. Inappropriately harsh or glowing reviews will not be considered. Journal Club submissions must be concise and should be limited to approximately 1500 words. They should be written in a style that is understandable to all readers of The Journal of Neuroscience. Avoid using jargon and unnecessary abbreviations. A single, original schematic or explanatory figure is acceptable. The figure caption must appear in the main document, after the references. Do not duplicate figures that were in the reviewed paper –links to any figures you cite will be placed in the published Journal Club. In the text, refer to the cited figures with the author's name, e.g., "(Author et al., Figure 1A)". A title page must be included with your submission. The title page should include: Journal Club title, citation of article being reviewed, list of Journal Club authors, author affiliations (universities/research institutes etc.; for graduate students, the affiliation should be listed as the Graduate Program or Department), corresponding author, corresponding author's contact information (address, phone, and email address), abbreviated title, and acknowledgments (optional). Review Procedures Journal Club submissions are examined by the editors for accuracy and appropriateness, but are generally not peer-reviewed. Submissions requiring more than minor revisions will not be accepted because of time constraints. The most common reasons for rejection of a Journal Club submission are failure to provide sufficiently novel insights about neural mechanisms and failure to provide a cogent and concise explanation of those insights. The editors reserve the right to balance acceptances among topics and institutions. Due to the large volume of submissions, we do not provide detailed reviews of Journal Club articles that are not accepted for publication. Decisions on the acceptability of Journal Clubs are not subject to appeal. The authors of the paper that is reviewed will be allowed to read the Journal Club before publication. If the authors choose to reply, their response will be linked to the published Journal Club. Submission Instructions Journal Clubs must be submitted through The Journal of Neuroscience submission site. They do not require a submission fee or publication fee. In using the on-line submission site, please follow these instructions: For questions, please JN_Features{at}sfn.org.
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- Print ISSN: 0270-6474
- Online ISSN: 1529-2401
