Editorials

Abstract

Editorials are of course written by the journal Editors themselves, so you will probably not be publishing an Editorial, strictly defined, anytime soon. But if we think about “editorials” a bit more broadly, we will see that they occur quite frequently in medical journals, simply under other names. An “editorial”, broadly defined, is simply an essay that presents the author’s thinking rather than new data. Besides research papers, most journals allow for other kinds of essay publications, which they give various names, such as “Perspectives” or “Viewpoint”. Furthermore, many journals allow for “Special Reports” or other scholarly essays that, although different from mere “Editorials” or “Viewpoints”, usually still involve some degree of editorializing. Besides all these kinds of editorial-like essay publications, the “Discussion” section of a research paper often resembles an editorial, especially when the thoughts of the authors are more interesting than their data. Therefore, it is useful to know how to write editorials, even if you are not yet the Editor-in-Chief of a journal.