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2 SA JOURNAL OF RADIOLOGY • December 2005

EDITORIAL

Bounding ahead with our Journal

Savvas Andronikou
MB BCh, FCRad (SA), FRCR (Lond), 

PhD (UCT)

Department of Radiology
Tygerberg Hospital

University of Stellenbosch 

This will read more like a memo than an editorial but I guess this is the best avenue for

informing our readers. We must extend our gratitude as a Society and as a professional body

to Ian Duncan who served this journal as chief editor and brought it alive. I see Ian is still

active in publishing, with a current paper in Paediatric Radiology. Keep up the good work Ian

and we hope we can continue your impetus to improve the journal.

This will be the first issue with the editorial team changes. I have taken over duties of chief

editor and I have brought in Mala Modi and Nicky Wieselthaler as assistant editors because

of their publication experience. We hope to bring some variety and enthusiasm working as a

team. The journal has also undergone a minor face-lift as you can see. We have changed to a

smaller more ‘professional’ font and will use the space for larger images, seeing that this is an

imaging journal. You will also notice a new but small section called the specialty corner at the

back of each issue. This will be managed by the assistant editors and hopefully will highlight

subspecialty expertise that exists nationwide. The one in this issue concentrates for obvious

reasons on paediatric radiology and is produced by PISSA (Paediatric Imaging Society of

South Africa), a subgroup of the Radiological Society of South Africa. We hope that the other

subgroups that exist will take up the reins using our first contribution as a template to deliv-

er news, journal article reviews and conference information regarding their subspecialty.

Congratulations must go to the contributing universities for their issues to date. In par-

ticular you will notice that this issue is formed primarily from ‘spillover’ from the previous

Wits issue, which shows the enthusiasm and desire to get down and publish. Some words of

warning must accompany this, however. In their eagerness some contributors ignored regu-

lar methodology and referencing requirements that make a journal what it is and that differ-

entiate it from a periodical. I have also noted an increasing amount of long-winded case

reports rather than solid research or review material. Case reports should be truncated into

pictorial interludes where the picture tells the story. Review articles are essential for a worth-

while read and for educational purposes but they should be written by someone with insight

into the topic of interest. Publication of MMed theses is encouraged as this will add signifi-

cantly to the journal content quality.

We have redesigned the instructions to authors indicating the types of articles  acceptable

for publication and giving a description of each. We have also decided on a restriction in arti-

cle length to encourage concise work and to create more topics per journal issue. These will

be available on the RSSA website. Our editorial team will be involved in accepting or reject-

ing submissions which will be delivered via the guest editor from each university. The sched-

ule for 2006 will also be announced on the RSSA website. I hope you will enjoy our input as

we move towards a peer-reviewed publication that is cited on the major databases.

Savvas Andronikou
Chief Editor

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