Updated April 2024
Journal Club articles provide scholarly reviews of recently published JNeurosci articles. They are written by students and postdocs under the guidance of a mentor, and they are meant to be accessible by a broad range of young neuroscientists.
Requirements
All authors must be trainees: current graduate students, or postdoctoral fellows or residents that have received their doctoral or medical degree within the past 5 years. Mentors may not be authors, but they should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section. Authors may publish no more than one Journal Club over the course of their career.
Submission of a Journal Club article is a multi-step process. If authors identify an article published in JNeurosci in the past month that they would like to bring to the attention of a broader audience, they should email the Features Editor at jn_features@sfn.org to reserve the article. Once an article has been reserved, no other Journal Club submissions discussing the same article will be considered unless the reservation is withdrawn.
Because the capacity of the Board to mentor and handle Journal Clubs is limited, there will be a monthly cap on reservations. After the cap is reached for a given month, no more reservations will be granted unless a previous reservation is withdrawn. The editors may decline reservation request if the author’s institution or the topic of the article to be highlighted is already overrepresented among reservations and submissions.
If you receive one of the slots for Journal Club submission in a given month, you will have 1 week to submit following information in a single document:
- Title and first author of the paper you are highlighting.
- An outline of your proposed Journal Club. At a minimum, this should list the topic of each paragraph in the article, in the order of presentation. For example:
- A statement of the broad area addressed by the paper
- Specific past results (including citations) that lay the foundation for the questions addressed in the highlighted paper
- The objective of the highlighted paper
- Key experiments that you will describe
- Conclusions based on the results of the experiments
- Points that you would like to make about the highlighted article and its significance
- A brief biography of each author, including career stage, year degree attained (if applicable), and a description of any applicable experience (e.g., classes, research, literature reviews) you have done or plan to do related to the topic of the highlighted article.
- The name and brief biography of a mentor selected by the authors. Alternatively, we offer mentorship by some of our Associate, Reviewing, and Senior Editors, the Editor-in-Chief, or the Features Editor. Please review the list of editors and their expertise and indicate if you wish to be mentored by an Editorial Board member.
- Conflict of Interest statement. Indicate anything that might be perceived as a conflict of interest, such as being in the same department or program as one of the authors of the highlighted paper, having collaborated with one of the authors in the past 5 years, or doing research that is in direct competition with that described. If your PI has collaborated with the first or last author of the highlighted paper within the last 3 years, that might also constitute a conflict of interest. For more details, see SfN’s Guidelines for Responsible Conduct Regarding Scientific Communication.
After we get this information, we will provide feedback about your proposed article, either to help you turn it into a publishable Journal Club or to explain why we do not think it will make a suitable Journal Club.
After your proposal is accepted, you should review it with your mentor, asking for feedback on content, organization, and accessibility. You should then write the article on your own, having your mentor provide feedback when you think it is ready to submit.
After addressing any additional suggestions by your mentor, submit your Journal Club online. We will review it and provide further feedback if revisions are required.
Content and Format
In general, Journal Club articles should have three components: a short overview of the topic and questions addressed in the reviewed paper; a description of the key findings; and a brief discussion of the significance of the paper. Authors should discuss how the highlighted paper expands knowledge about the field:for example, how it fits into an existing or new conceptual model. The Journal Club must offer more than a summary of what was stated in the original article. For example, it might present a broader interpretation of the results in the context of work that the author did not discuss. Presentation of unpublished work or modeling results is not acceptable, however.
Journal Clubs may also provide constructive criticism of the work and discussion of more experiments that could be done. But these criticisms and suggestions must be accurate, well-reasoned (preferably with supporting citations), and diplomatic. Inappropriately harsh or glowing reviews will not be considered. Moreover, the focus should be on what was learned, rather than what might have been done differently.
Finally, although we expect that authors of Journal Clubs will be working on a topic related to that of the reviewed paper and thus will be familiar with the experimental approach, Journal Clubs should not focus on the author's own work.
Journal Club submissions must be concise and should be limited to 1,500 words. They should be written in a style that is understandable to all readers of JNeurosci. Avoid using jargon and unnecessary abbreviations. References are strictly limited to 10, including the highlighted article.
A single, original schematic or explanatory figure is acceptable. The figure caption must appear in the main document after the references. Do not duplicate figures that were in the reviewed paper: links to any figures you cite will be placed in the published Journal Club. In the text, refer to the cited figures with the author's name, e.g., “(Author et al., Figure 1A).”
A title page must be included with your submission. The title page should include: title; citation of article being reviewed; list of authors and affiliations (graduate students’ affiliations should be listed as the graduate program or department); corresponding author and contact information (address, phone, and email address); abbreviated title; name, affiliation, and email address of mentor; and additional acknowledgments.
Review Procedures
Journal Club submissions are examined by the editors for accuracy and appropriateness but are generally not peer reviewed. The editors reserve the right to balance acceptances among topics and institutions.
The authors of the paper that is reviewed will be allowed to read the Journal Club before publication. If the authors choose to reply, their response will be linked to the published Journal Club. If the authors of the highlighted paper wish, they can submit an eLetter that will be linked to the Journal Club upon publication.