New Options for Publishing Your Research Data with FRBM

Change is coming to Free Radical Biology & Medicine! In response to author and reader requests, and to changing times and needs, your Society journal, Free Radical Biology & Medicine is revolutionizing its publishing model.

Effective immediately, Free Radical Biology & Medicine will publish three new types of articles: Short Communications, Mini-Review Articles, and Critical Methods Articles. Of course, we will continue to publish the Full-length Original Research Articles, Full-length Review Articles, and Hypothesis Papers that have made our journal name synonymous with the Free Radical and Redox Biology & Medicine field.

The new Short Communications will enable authors to submit groundbreaking new work that may not yet have the level of detail expected of Full-length Original Research Articles. The new Mini-Review Articles will enable you to submit state-of-the-art, targeted short reviews that highlight the latest developments and opportunities in a given topic or area, rather than exhaustive examinations of the full literature. Finally, Critical Methods Articles will allow authors to submit descriptions and validations of entirely new and innovative methods, or to focus on substantial revisions, updates, or reevaluations of existing methods.

In addition, to be more responsive to your need to publish papers in a timely manner, we are significantly decreasing our manuscript handling, review, and revision times. In particular, we are eliminating the practice of asking authors to make extensive changes and undertake new experiments. In the future, we will ask authors of high-quality papers only to make essential minor modifications to their papers prior to acceptance and publication. This practice will reduce unnecessary extra work for everyone, and allow us all to focus on what really counts – moving science forward! We trust you will benefit from the greater efficiency and freedom of expression these changes encourage and we look forward to receiving your new Short Communications, Mini-Review Articles, and Critical Methods Articles. Below is a detailed description of all the types of articles that Free Radical Biology & Medicine is now pleased to publish. Interested in publishing with Free Radical Biology & Medicine, visit the journal homepage on Elsevier.com to read the guide for authors and submit your paper online.

Yours sincerely,
The FRBM Editors and Publisher

Types of Articles

Short Communications: These concise research articles have a maximum length of 2000 words excluding graphical abstract, highlights, references, abstract and figure legends with a maximum of four figures with no more than 6 panels per figure. Authors are encouraged to either use supplementary data or co-publish a Data in Brief article to provide supportive information where appropriate. Short communications papers will receive an even faster peer-review service than normally provided, typically completed in under 10 working days.

Full-length Original Research Articles: Original articles are the normal medium of publication. Although there is no fixed length, articles should be as concise as possible, while providing sufficient information for the work to be repeated and for the claims of the authors to be judged by the readers. Authors are encouraged to either use supplementary data or co-publish a Data in Brief article to provide supportive information where appropriate.

Mini-Review Articles: Mini-reviews are succinct, focused updates of the literature related to a question of current interest in the scientific community (typically from the last 2-3 years). Subjects covered in Mini-reviews are generally narrower, either in scope or depth, than those covered in full-length Reviews. They should highlight/analyze/discuss recent and important findings and include the author's viewpoint on how the subject relates to the current state of the field. Mini-reviews are usually 2000 to 4000 words in length (excluding references and figure legends), include an abstract that is no more than 100 words, up to 50 references (should include titles), and one to three figures/illustrations.

Full-length Review Articles: Reviews (full-length) should provide a comprehensive analysis on topics of broad interest to the journal's readership. Reviews should be thorough, sufficiently critical and accommodate different points of view. They should stand out from other recently published reviews on the same theme. Although Reviews are not of any fixed length, they are usually 6,000 to 10,000 words in length (excluding references and figure legends), include an abstract that is no more than 150 words, normally between 75-250 references (should include titles), and a minimum of three figures/illustrations and summary table(s) of relevant literature.

Hypothesis Papers: Hypothesis Papers provide a mechanism for authors to advance new ideas, hypotheses, or theories. Such novel concepts are typically based primarily on previously published data, findings, or observations and a strong line of reasoning, rather than on extensive new experiments. Ideally, a way of testing the hypothesis or theory being proposed (along with proper experimental controls) should be developed as part of the submission.

Critical Methods Articles: Both new methods or substantial revisions or updates to existing methods are suitable as ‘Critical Methods.’ Authors should clearly state the purpose(s) of the method and why it is appropriate for the task. If other methods are flawed, briefly explain the problem with them. The chemical and/or biological basis of the method should be clearly explained. The limitations of the method should be elucidated; for example, many molecular biology measurements provide relative changes rather than absolute values and some methods may only be appropriate with certain kinds of biological samples.

Critical Methods papers must describe reagents, equipment, special techniques, and procedural steps in sufficient detail that they can be accurately reproduced by any competent free radical biologist. A detailed list of every reagent, including source and catalog number, should be provided and all required instrumentation must be listed. Describe each procedural step in detail, as well as the timing of all steps. Provide representative illustrations of steps where useful. Precautions should also be included for any steps where something can easily go wrong. Describe any post protocol calculations in detail and provide representative results. Describe any caveats that need to be considered. State whether the authors have patents or financial interests in the protocol or instruments.

June 2018