Welcome to Speaking of Medicine!
Welcome to Speaking of Medicine, the community blog run by the open access journal PLoS Medicine.
Speaking of Medicine is designed to be an inclusive and informal site for anyone interested in a truly global perspective on the challenges to human health, and the ethical issues and debates arising from the conduct, reporting and publishing of medical research. PLoS Medicine sees open access publishing and its creative potential as crucial to addressing these challenges; like all of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals everything we publish is not only freely available for anyone to read, but for anyone to distribute and re-use, to comment on and rate.
The unique global perspective of PLoS Medicine is outlined in a recent Editorial about the vision of the journal, five years after its first call for papers, which describes how PLoS Medicine prioritizes papers on the conditions and risk factors that contribute the towards the greatest global burden worldwide of sickness and mortality. There is more information about the scope of the journal on the journal site; the Chief Editor, Ginny Barbour, will post more on the blog about this in the coming days (see also the video below in which Ginny outlines the priorities of PLoS Medicine and why it is particularly important to make the papers on these conditions and risk factors available under an open access license).
We’ve specifically set aside areas of the Speaking of Medicine for people who write and contribute to the papers we publish. There are sections for authors and reviewers that include some helpful tips for using our submission site, both for first time users of PLoS Medicine or for more frequent users such as members of the journal’s international Editorial Board.
There are also sections of the blog for medical students – whose viewpoints PLoS Medicine has previously engaged through our Student Forums – and for those dealing with the media, whether journalists or press officers. One of the core principles of the Public Library of Science is “developing tools and materials to engage the interest and imagination of the public” in science and medicine and we hope this blog will be an embodiment of that principle.
But as well as this existing community, we hope that Speaking of Medicine will stimulate debate and thoughtful comment from anyone who is new to PLoS Medicine, PLoS and open access publishing – anyone thinking, reading or writing about human health and its global priorities, its biological, environmental, social and political aspects, and, as outlined on the public section of the blog, anyone who wants to know why open access publishing matters to everyone, not just those conducting medical research.
Here are answers to some basic questions:
What is PLoS Medicine?
PLoS Medicine is the leading open-access medical journal, providing an innovative and influential venue for research and comment on the major challenges to human health worldwide. We specifically seek to publish papers which have relevance across a range of settings and that address the major environmental, social, and political determinants of health, as well as the biological.
Watch this video about the priorities of PLoS Medicine:
How do I read PLoS Medicine and how do I submit my papers?
PLoS Medicine publishes research and magazine articles online on a weekly basis and it is freely available for anyone to read. You can see and read the featured papers on the week on the homepage, other recent papers by browsing by publication date, or by looking through the archive of monthly issues. You can also look through the papers by subject category. Remember, you can comment on and rate any of our papers!
If you are interested in submitting your paper, we first ask for a presubmission inquiry consisting of an abstract, a cover letter and ten key references. Take a look at our submission guidelines for how to proceed.
What is PLoS? How do I read and submit to the other PLoS journals?
The Public Library of Science was set up in 2003 and is committed to making all scientific and medical literature a freely available resource. Read more about the core principles of PLoS and some frequently asked questions about PLoS and open access publishing. You can also read more about the full complement of PLoS journals and to submit to them.
What about the PLoS blog?
The PLoS blog still exists and you can still read the archive of posts PLoS Medicine channel. Going forward the PLoS blog will concentrate on open access, technology and publishing, whilst Speaking of Medicine takes over as the main PLoS Medicine blog just as the everyONE blog has done for PLoS ONE.