Updated January 2019
Journal Club articles provide scholarly review of recently published JNeurosci articles. They are written by students and postdocs and are meant to be accessible by a broad range of young neuroscientists.
Requirements
We encourage Journal Club submissions that represent a group effort, but all authors must be graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, or the equivalent. Authors may publish no more than one Journal Club in a 12-month period.
Journal Club articles must be submitted within 2 months of the publication of the highlighted article. Authors are strongly encouraged to email the Features Editor at JN_Features@sfn.org before writing a Journal Club to reserve the article they wish to discuss. Once an article has been reserved, no other Journal Club submissions discussing the same article will be considered until after a decision has been made on the original requester's submission.
Journal Club authors are subject to the same guidelines as reviewers concerning conflict of interest: they should not be from the same institution or have any real or apparent conflict of interest with the authors of the article, for example having recently collaborated with the authors or having done research that addresses the same question treated in the article. For more details, see SfN’s Guidelines for Responsible Conduct Regarding Scientific Communication.
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 what the highlighted paper teaches us about how the nervous system works. 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 Presentation of unpublished work or modeling results is not acceptable, however.
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, but Journal Clubs should not focus on the author's own work. We encourage critical reviews, but comments must be accurate, well-reasoned, 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.
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.
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, and acknowledgments (optional).
Submission Instructions
Journal Clubs must be submitted online. They do not require a submission or publication fees. In the unlikely event that you are prompted to provide payment information, please contact jn@sfn.org.
Direct other questions to the Features Editor at JN_Features@sfn.org.
Review Procedures
Journal Club submissions are examined by the editors for accuracy and appropriateness but are generally not peer reviewed. Submissions requiring more than minor revisions will not be accepted because of time constraints. The most common reasons for rejection of a Journal Club submission are failure to provide sufficiently novel insights about neural mechanisms and failure to provide a cogent and concise explanation of those insights. The editors reserve the right to balance acceptances among topics and institutions.
Due to the large volume of submissions, we do not provide detailed reviews of Journal Club articles that are not accepted for publication. Decisions on the acceptability of Journal Clubs are not subject to appeal. 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.