Maybe it’s the spring broadcasting phenomenon that sent me to our archives—or maybe it’s the fact that each day’s correspondence reminds me that there are those who still see business-to-business magazines as the “rags” they were during the early 1970s.

Whatever moved me, however, I do feel compelled to repeat what I wrote on this page about a year ago—most of it, anyway.

Back then [in the 1970s], we called trade journals “throw-aways.” Now the business-to-business press publishes a new kind of trade journal—practical, peer-reviewed, credible, and readable. But when I hear echoes of the past I know that we need to do a better job of articulating our editorial mission, our philosophy. ACT’s publisher, Wayne Blow, and I call it “separation of church and state”when we talk about our policy of maintaining separate domains for advertising and editorial.

Buying advertising space—or not buying space—in this magazine has no effect on whether an article will be published. Those of us who have been putting out this magazine for almost 10 years accept that as a given, as inevitable as the fact that night follows day. But we have concluded that we need to make our philosophy and policies clear to those most affected by our decisions: you, the readers.

Editorial decisions are based solely on editorial criteria. All manuscripts submitted for consideration as feature articles are subject to review by a panel of experts on the manuscript’s topic. Our authors frequently praise the reviewers for helping them to make their ideas more clear and persuasive. For example, an author who has himself served on several editorial boards recently wrote that “the reviewers’ comments were fair and even-handed.”

In addition to publishing peer-reviewed feature articles, we publish columnists who present their unique views of various facets of clinical research. And readers have several opportunities to express their opinions and share their ideas in less formal sections of the magazine: Letters to the Editor, Guest Editorials, and Notes from the Field.

Whether dealing with peer-reviewed or informal copy, however, ACT’s editorial staff strives to ensure that whatever we publish is informative, authoritative, useful, practical—and neutral.

As always, I encourage you to share your expertise with your colleagues by submitting useful, informative, authoritative, practical manuscripts to Applied Clinical Trials.

Jane Ganter Editor-in-Chief
email: jganter@advanstar.com