News

The BMJ editorial team members have been very supportive to the ideas and activities of the EQUATOR Network since the very beginning of the project. Now, the BMJ board has decided to extend its support further. One of the results of a series of fruitful meetings with the BMJ Publishing Director Peter Ashman is an endorsement of EQUATOR principles in BMJ’s Instructions to Authors.
 
Following the successful EQUATOR launch meeting on 26 June 2008, the BMJ published an editorial (1) highlighting some of the main meeting messages and providing basic information about reporting guidelines and principles of good research writing and reporting, which are being heavily promoted by the EQUATOR Network. The article is a very good read not only for research authors and reporting guideline developers but also for editors of other journals who are considering implementing EQUATOR resources in their Instructions to Authors.

Trish Groves, the BMJ deputy editor and author of the editorial, goes even further in providing useful suggestions for reporting guidelines developers and the EQUATOR Network itself. In her presentation at the EQUATOR launch meeting, Dr Groves offered many thought stimulating views on some misconceptions associated with reporting guidelines that possibly prevent their wide adoption by authors and journals. She also outlined some ideas on what needs to be improved in order to facilitate wider use of reporting guidelines in the editorial practice. Slides from her presentation are now available on the meeting page together with contributions of other speakers.



References:
1. BMJ 2008; 337:a718



Posted by Iveta Simera
iveta.simera@csm.ox.ac.uk