Publication audit for the Year 2009 and revised guidelines for authors of Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences

Annual publication audit and its analysis by Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences is now a routine for the last couple of years.1-2 It helps to find out the strength as well as weaknesses and how best to plan for the future. A critical look at the Year 2009 has revealed that there has been a constant increase in the number of manuscripts being received for publication from within the country as well as overseas. During the Year under review we received 498 manuscripts as against 140 in 2004, 209 in 2005, 268 in 2006, 354 in 2007 and 427 in 2008. The number of manuscripts received from Pakistan has also shown steady increase starting from 78 in 2004 to 146 in 2009. (Table-I). While the total number of manuscripts received from Islamic Republic of Iran has remained almost the same 170 in 2009 as against 169 in 2008 there has been over 100% increase in manuscripts from Turkey, eighty in 2009 as against 34 in 2008 which is very encouraging.