Report from the BMJ’s full editorial committee meeting - 9 May 2000

Members of the committee were: Tricia Greenhalgh, Hazel Inskip, Ron Davis, Alison Tonks

Do restrictions on smoking at home, at school and in public places influence teenage smoking

Thank you for sending us this paper. We are pleased to say that we would like to publish it in the BMJ if you are willing to revise it as we suggest.

  1. The paper is too long for the BMJ in its present form. Space is very tight, particularly for the tobacco theme issue. To be fair to everyone we are insisting that papers are no longer than 2,000 words excluding references, tables and figures.
  2. Your analysis is complex and the general reader will struggle to follow it. Please clarify as much as you can remembering that your audience will be statistically naïve. It’s important that readers can judge the strength of your findings for themselves. You might run your next draft by a friendly general practitioner to check the clarity. Your findings are much clearer in the abstract than they are in the body of the text.
  3. Your sampling strategy is also complex. Please clarify the kind of population you are aiming at, and what this means for generalisability of results.
  4. The title should include a reference to the design of the study.
  5. Please include a sentence on ethics committee approval and informed consent procedures.
  6. A flow chart of the sampling procedure and response rates would be useful.
  7. We need signatures for all the authors, and a statement of each ones contribution to the study.
The last points relate to our processes:

a Please respond to any checklists and guidelines which are enclosed with this paper.

b We are now processing all manuscripts electronically, so please could you provide us with a copy of your article on disk as well as in hard copy. Please see the enclosed guidance about our preferred formats. If you cannot provide one of these please send a disk anyway with a note of the software used.

c It would help us greatly if you would send with your revised paper a covering letter explaining how you have responded to all the points raised in this report.