ONE for All The Next Step for PLoS 英文参考文献.docVIP

Editorial ONE for All: The Next Step for PLoS Catriona J. MacCallum M ost science is not published in Science, Nature, Cell, or even PLoS Biology. Indeed, the increasing pressure of submissions, limited page budgets, and the existing reward system by which the value of a paper is placed not on its content but on the venue in which it is published has led most journals to reject a substantial fraction of papers before peer review. The reasons given for rejection are various: the editors may claim that the paper is beyond the scope of a journal, too specialized, of insuf?cient general interest, or lacking a suf?ciently novel advance—even too complicated. disciplines. Most traditional journals limit the scope of the papers they take and engender arti?cial barriers between subject areas. As Simon Levin mentioned in his editorial launching the “Challenges” series in PLoS Biology [1], no matter the subdiscipline, there are commonalities that unify biology. PLoS strongly agrees, and because such links can be made between all the sciences, PLoS ONE is keen to consider submissions not just in biology and medicine but from all of science: physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science, and so on. Peer review will also be also handled differently. PLoS ONE uses a two-stage assessment process starting when a paper is submitted but continuing long after it has been published. Submitted papers will ?rst be scrutinized by an appropriate handling editor from the PLoS ONE board who can make a decision to reject or accept a paper (with or without revision) on the basis of their own expertise, or in consultation with other editorial board members or following advice from reviewers in the ?eld. This pre- publication peer review concentrates on objective and technical concerns to determine whether the research has been suf?ciently well conceived, well executed, and well described to justify inclusion in the scienti?c record. If the paper is accepted, the name of the handling editor