To encourage shorter, more focused, and timely publication in its scholarly journals (excepting the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society and Earth Interactions), the American Meteorological Society (AMS) will introduce an expedited editorial/production process for shorter articles that qualify for consideration in this category, which will be designated “expedited contributions.” In conjunction with this change, the publication category of notes will be eliminated and the “Notes and Correspondence” section in each issue will be given the new title “Comments and Replies.” When published, the expedited contributions will not be identified as such in the table of contents or in the individual articles online, but rather these short articles will appear in the normal sequence of articles.
To qualify as an expedited contribution, a manuscript will have to meet three criteria:
It must be less than 2500 words (approximately nine double-spaced pages, abstract through acknowledgments).
It must have no more than six figure and table “pieces,” where a piece is a table, figure, or figure component that is handled individually (e.g., one submitted file).
It must not be part of a multipart paper.
The journal editorial offices will begin accepting expedited contributions on 1 January 2010 and will no longer take notes after that date. The Notes and Correspondence section will continue to appear in the published journals until all notes currently in the editorial system are published.
