Dr Haw is probably right in her assertions that the jobbing psychiatrist is likely to become the bobbing psychiatrist when reading the Journal – jumping from one item to the next with little close examination of the content – and it is clear from a recent paper that the ability of good ghostwriting to make an arresting impact on the reader pays dividends (Reference Healy and CattellHealy & Cattell, 2003). We are taking notice of this by trying to improve and shorten the titles of papers submitted to the Journal; prospective authors please note. However, Dr Haw has stimulated me to go further; I have a hypothesis that readers of the Journal might help me in testing. It is a hypothesis that is best kept blind at this stage, and I am disclosing it only to the Associate Editors. For each of the main sections of the Journal (editorials, debates, original papers, review articles, book reviews and correspondence) I invite readers to score on a four-point scale (0=rarely or never read, 1=seldom read, 2=frequently read and 3=regularly or always read) in which ‘read’ is taken to be a reasonably full examination of the article (a good test of this is that you could summarise the main impact of the article to others). Could you send your responses to me at the address below by the end of January 2004, and I will report the results – and the hypothesis – shortly afterwards.

Meanwhile, I hope our readers are aware of a third journal published by the Royal College of Psychiatrists – Advances in Psychiatric Treatment (APT). Although not an organ for original research, APT publishes expert, in-depth reviews of topics of current clinical interest (http://apt.rcpsych.org/).