Changes to Manuscript Categories and Author Charges
Masaru Matsuoka · Plant and Cell Physiology · 2010
Dear Authors and Readers of Plant and Cell Physiology, I would like to announce some recently decided changes regarding manuscript categories and author charges to improve further the quality of Plant and Cell Physiology. The category Short Communication was originally intended to present mainly novel experimental techniques, their specific methods and bioinformatics. Recently, however, it seems that a significant proportion of submitted papers are merely a shortened version of a Regular Paper or a Rapid Paper, and do not fall within the original purpose of this category. With this in mind, we have decided to abolish the category Short Communication and introduce a new category called ‘Techniques/Databases’. This category will be specifically designated to present ‘significant new information on novel experimental techniques, their specific methods, bioinformatics and databases’ to replace the core field covered by Short Communications as well as to allow us to expand our scope to include Databases. This change will take effect on July 1, 2010 and from that date we will cease to accept new submissions of Short Communication and will start accepting submissions to Techniques/Databases. I truly hope that the introduction of this new category will contribute to enhance further the journal’s coverage and that manuscripts will present a clear view of their intended scope. I would also like to remind authors that any short papers presenting insightful findings in plant development and function should be submitted as a Regular Paper that has no minimum page limit.