Top 10 Most Read in June: snus and snoring, long-term antibiotic treatment in times of resistance, the success of the NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship, and serious video gaming for coping with pain

Six new articles made their way up to the Top 10 Most Read list of BMJ Open in June. Maintaining the top position for the second consecutive month is the systematic review and meta-analysis by Oliver Kennedy and colleagues establishing an association between coffee consumption and reduced risk of hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common type of liver cancer. […]

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Top 10 Most Read: Negative primary care feedback from minority ethnic patients, higher caesarean sections in for-profit hospitals, adolescents’ sex and drug habits, and biased psychology

    February sees five new entries in the top 10 most read articles. At number one this month is an experimental vignette study investigating why minority ethnic groups report poorer primary care experience in patient surveys. Burt and colleagues designed an experiment in the UK to determine whether South Asian people rate simulated GP […]

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BMJ Open trials Penelope

We are pleased to announce that, beginning today, BMJ Open will be providing authors with the option to trial Penelope. Penelope is an automated online tool that checks scientific manuscripts for completeness and gives immediate feedback to authors. It has been customised to BMJ Open guidelines to help authors prepare for submission. Penelope was developed by […]

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BMJ Open: highlights from 2016 in review

In 2011 BMJ Open appeared on the medical publishing scene becoming, in only five years, the world’s largest general medical journal (2015 – Five years old and growing). Another year has passed since then, and thanks to defining our distinctive identity, and being rigorous, open and transparent, we have continued to grow consistently and steadily, […]

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Requesting clinical trial protocols

We have recently made some changes to our submission system. If we receive a clinical trial, we will now ask that authors include the original trial protocol. Editor-in-chief, Dr Trish Groves, explains why: Transparent reporting of research has always been at the heart of BMJ Open. From the very start the journal has published all […]

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The importance of reviewers – 2015

The peer review process is central to scholarly research, a critical part of the publishing process and a method of quality control for the scientific community. While peer review can seem like a daunting, never-ending task at times, without it journals would not survive and continue to publish the important, accurate findings they do today. […]

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Open Access Week: the next generation

Open Access Week, a global event now entering its eighth year and running from the 20th – 26th October, is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to […]

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BMJ Open now publishes cohort profiles

  BMJ Open currently publishes articles reporting research results or study protocols. We have now expanded our scope to include cohort profiles, articles that describe major, ongoing research cohorts. What’s the difference between a protocol, a cohort profile and a research paper? Detailed information about cohort profiles is in our instructions for authors. In brief, cohort […]

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