Academic Writing
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World J Gastroenterol. Oct 21, 2022; 28(39): 5731-5734
Published online Oct 21, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i39.5731
All journals should include a correspondence section
Nikolaos Papanas, Dimitri P Mikhailidis, Debabrata Mukherjee
Nikolaos Papanas, Diabetes Centre, Second Department of Internal Medicine, Democritus Univ Thrace, Alexandroupolis 68100, Greece
Dimitri P Mikhailidis, Department of Surgical Biotechnology, Division of Surgery and Interventional Science, and Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University College London Medical School, Royal Free Hosp Campus, London NW3 2QG, United Kingdom
Debabrata Mukherjee, Department of Internal Medicine, Texas Tech University, Health Science Central, El Paso, TX 79905, United States
Author contributions: Papanas N, Mikhailidis DP, and Mukherjee D contributed to: (1) Substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (3) final approval of the version to be published.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Dimitri P Mikhailidis, MSc, MD, FRCPath, FRCP, Hon. Professor, Department of Surgical Biotechnology, Division of Surgery and Interventional Science, and Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University College London Medical School, Royal Free Hosp Campus, Pond St, London NW3 2QG, United Kingdom. mikhailidis@aol.com
Received: July 3, 2022
Peer-review started: July 3, 2022
First decision: August 1, 2022
Revised: September 3, 2022
Accepted: October 1, 2022
Article in press: October 1, 2022
Published online: October 21, 2022
Processing time: 106 Days and 9.2 Hours
Abstract

Letters to the editor can provide useful scientific information and evaluation of published work as well as acting as an additional level of peer review. Furthermore, letters are good reading material, especially if they involve a debate between authors. Finally, letters are relatively short. Therefore, inexperienced career researchers can use such an opportunity to practice putting together a cogent argument. However, it is far from an ideal situation if letters are the only (or main) type of article on which to base an academic career.

Keywords: Correspondence; Journals; Letters to the editor; Medical writing; Peer review; Debate

Core tip: Letters provide another level of worldwide peer review. Three editors express their opinions regarding the scientific value and structure of correspondence sections in journals.