Notice to the Authors and Readers of Planta Medica
Online Manuscript Submission in Preparation

Dear readers and authors,

The growing esteem of Planta Medica as the leading international journal on medicinal plant research attracts an ever-increasing number of authors from throughout the world. Consequently, the number of article submissions to Planta Medica is growing continuously. In the past two years, submissions have increased by circa 30 per cent.

This is, in the first place, very good news for those who are responsible for the journal’s quality as well as for the readers who benefit from the still growing impact of Planta Medica. Thieme Editors express their respect and gratitude to the Editor-in-Chief and his team, to the Co-Editors and the members of the Advisory Board for their successful work for the journal.

The still growing number of submissions is also a challenge for the Editorial Office that has to organize the peer review of the submitted papers. In order to facilitate the whole reviewing process, the publisher has decided to provide an online submission system for both authors and editors of Planta Medica. The system will support the complete process of submitting and reviewing manuscripts, as well as the correspondence between authors, editorial office and the referees.

The system will be launched on October 1^st, 2004. Until then, the manuscript submission shall be executed in the traditional way (see Instructions to Authors).

Important: Beginning from October 1^st, 2004, authors are asked to refrain from submitting paper copies of their manuscripts and to use exclusively the online submission system. Please note that after October 1^st no paper copies will be accepted at all. The Editorial Office will return every single manuscript to the authors, referring to the online system.

The URL address of the system will be disclosed in the September issue of Planta Medica. In addition to this, authors are asked to follow the information given on the journal’s home page at www.thieme.de/plantamedica. As soon as the submission system is online, the publisher will place a hyperlink at the journal’s page.

The publisher and editors of Planta Medica are confident that the implementation of the online submission system will represent an important improvement for our authors. For this purpose, Thieme is cooperating with the world’s leading provider of manuscript tracking systems. The system itself will help to reduce the administrative time spans and thus shorten the publication time. It is easy to operate and offers a maximum of convenience to authors and editors.

The publisher will provide any help needed for the time of transition to the new system, and we kindly ask the authors to support the work of the Editorial Office by using the new facilities.

Hartmut Kuhlmann
Publishing Editor