As you likely know, the target audience of the Journal of Swine Health and Production is broad and encompasses many groups involved in the swine industry including researchers, academics, students, and practitioners, to name a few. The journal aims to publish manuscripts that have an applied focus and to present scientific information that is accessible to this highly varied demographic. As you can probably imagine this is not an easy task given the wide-range of interests and needs in our swine scientific and veterinary community.
The journal strives to publish information that is useful for the busy practitioner. How can a busy practitioner become involved in contributing to the peer-reviewed literature? Consider contributing a case report or case study to the journal.
When I was in practice, I recall thinking, “I should write this up.” But I never did make the time using busy appointment schedules and long tiring days as my main excuses. I encourage any practitioner reading this to not be like me! As practitioners you are our “first responders” to seeing novel diseases, novel presentations of common problems, an unexpected complication, or perhaps just something interesting that you feel should be communicated in a formal way to your colleagues.
The journal publishes case reports and case studies and these articles, like all other submissions, are peer-reviewed. I get it, submitting a manuscript for peer-review is a time-consuming task and often daunting to those who do not submit often, or perhaps ever. But if you have an interesting case report or case study, do ask yourself if it is something you would like to share with your colleagues. Keep in mind when considering a case for submission that it is helpful to provide detailed information such as comprehensive notes, diagnostic results and follow-up diagnostic testing, herd/animal production parameters, images, etc.
There are detailed author guidelines that you can find online at aasv.org/shap/guidelines.pdf that outline the format for case report and case study articles. Manuscript templates also can be found at aasv.org/shap/guidelines/index.htm. As always, the journal staff are here to help you. Please feel free to contact the journal office if you need any general guidance on how to proceed.
Terri O’Sullivan, DVM, PhD
Executive Editor