Editorial

Dear readers,

We are starting the new year of our journal with this first issue and we hope, as every year, that the coming year will be better than the previous one. Our main goal for 2017 is to prepare and publish the complete set of issues. This was not possible in the past years, mainly from financial reasons, but for the current year, the journal obtained a significant financial support, which we think enables us to accomplish our goal. Please cross your fingers in order for us to manage this great amount of tiny and invisible work with the journal also this year.

The journal could not exist without many people, who contribute on its production and without whom the journal could not be produced. I would like to thank all reviewers of previously published articles for their expert work and mainly for their time, which they provided to the journal and which they had to take from their busy professional and personal life. I would also like to thank all guarantors of previously published issues, who took care of their uneasy task honestly and conscientiously enabled preparation of inspiring issues. I also would like to thank the technical editor of our journal, Michaela Malinová, for her diligent work and technical preparation of the journal, which obtains the final print form in her hands.

The journal could not be published without the authors, who provide their articles. Their expert and formal level has been increasing every year, however, there is always something to improve. Virtually every article needs major or minor amendments during the review process. In spite of that I would like to thank to all of our authors for their work, because writing a good article and successful passage through the review process is difficult and time demanding work. I would also like to notify possible future authors that we are of course interested in their articles. With regards to our experience, however, we would like to add a few advices and recommendations.

Every author, when he/she prepares an article, should remember whether their information reflect some relevant or current topic with regards to the topic of the journal, whether the article contains some new information, whether it is possible to consider its conclusions to be important and whether these conclusions are sufficiently scientifically based. Such articles have a chance to be accepted. The ability to write a good article is not a characteristic of everyone, but it could be learned. However, it needs certain practice, carefulness and optimally also a good teacher or supervisor. This may help to save a lot of work with repeated amendments of the text and to reduce the risk of not accepting the article for the journal.

Apart from these difficult skills there are also “simple” skills, which is mainly observation of formal requirements, which are requested by our editors. These requirements are clearly specified in the instructions for authors, which may be found always at the end of each issue. Therefore, we ask every future author to read these instructions before submitting his/her manuscript. Essential is mainly observation of formal structure of the paper with regards to its type, i.e. the classic: introduction, material and methods, results, discussion and conclusion. The same structure should also have the abstract of the paper, which, if written well and comprehensibly, determines whether the potential reader reads the whole article.

The “attractiveness” of the article for specialized searching machines is also defined by correctly chosen key words, optimally according to the MeSH standards. Even correctly chosen title is able to determine whether someone reads the article. It should reflect the basis of the paper in order to attract the attention of the reader, who is currently overloaded by information. Even if other formal rules are observed, such as format of references, ethical principles, correctly chosen statistical method, disclosure, technical requirements to the images, tables and charts, or correctly written cover letter, could decide whether the manuscript will be accepted for publication or not.

To conclude, let me wish our coming year a lot of success. On behalf of the editorial board I promise that we shall continue to try offering future authors a quality platform for publication of their scientific knowledge. And not to forget the most important, I would like to wish our readers an inspiring reading.

Aleš Fibír, M. D., Ph.D.

Editor-in-chief

Acta chirurgiae plasticae