Images, Case Series, and Other Clinical Features

There are sections in some journals, such as images, pathology, case study, etc, that are mostly educational rather than research. I assume that these materials help us to make the journals more attractive. In many journals, there is no information on the way they collect these materials in their instructions. What are the common policies on these sections? Are they produced by invited authors and experts or any one can submit them?

Another important question is—do they affect the impact factor? They appear in PubMed, and I am not sure if they are considered as part of the number of the whole articles published by a journal to calculate IF?

Farhat Farrokhi
Executive Editor, Urology Journal

________________________
In many journals, indeed, such sections are explained. In the e-submission section of many journals, we can also select such categories as the type of manuscript to be submitted. To the best of my knowledge, for most journals, these sections are open to all authors. Theoretically, these sections would increase the impact factor of a journal, since, although they are not treated as substantive articles by ISI (in the denominator for calculation of journal impact factor), citations to such articles are counted in the numerator.

F Habibzadeh