EDITORIAL
Our English-language journals
The roles of any researcher are to make public scientific findings, spread the knowledge and contribute to the construction of a better Dentistry. Many are the difficulties, among them is managing articles to appear in renowned publications because there are only a few qualified journals and a large number of papers to be published.
In 1990, the first English-language dental journal of Brazil, the Brazilian Dental Journal, was launched. The scope was, and still is, to disseminate scientific and clinical knowledge produced in Brazil within the international scientific community. Our example was followed by other journals and nowadays we proudly count on three English-language dental journals in the University of São Paulo. Together, they publish original articles, review articles and reports of clinical cases of the highest quality in the field of dental and oral health sciences.
The three "sister" publications, Brazilian Dental Journal (FORP-USP), Brazilian Oral Research (FO-USP) and Journal of Applied Oral Science (FOB-USP) divulge the best of the Brazilian research and share information that accounts for the progress and improvement of our profession. They have significantly contributed to the consolidation of different research fields and, as a result, have incremented the development of a critical sense among authors and reviewers alike. All these journals were submitted to the criticism of the worlds academic community and, due to our efforts, hardworking, excellence of the editorial boards and quality of contents, are now considered reputable publications. We have credibility and receive manuscript submissions from different countries worldwide.
However, the difficulties were and still are huge. It was not easy at the start, for example, to be accepted even in our own country. When we began publishing in English, in the 90s, there was a widespread strong nationalistic feeling. Most of Brazilian researchers did not understand (or even accepted) the importance of international divulgation. It took time to give up the prejudices and the editors were always criticized for their stance. But all of this is past.
Today, our great challenge is to increase the number of issues published every year and the number of articles in each issue. There is great demand of submissions but the available space is limited. Electronic versions of our journals can be accessed on the internet, but we still depend on the hard copy. We are convinced that along this decade all publications will be available strictly online. The speed of web-based publication will offer the opportunity to make findings public more promptly than printed journals are able, and the potentially wider readership will create a greater possibility for works to become widely referenced in other studies.
After all these years we, the editors of Brazilian international journals, are proud of our contribution to this phase of evolution of the scientific culture and of our belief in the future.
Jesus Djalma Pécora
Full member of SBPqO
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
14 Feb 2006 -
Date of issue
Dec 2005
