About Silence

What is Silence?

Silence is an online, peer-reviewed open access journal that covers all aspects of genetic and epigenetic control that are mediated by RNA.

Silence aims to feature research involving small RNA molecules, and submissions are invited describing novel insights into the biogenesis and activity of such molecules. Manuscripts describing other RNA-mediated mechanisms in prokaryotes and eukaryotes are also of interest, particularly if they involve aspects of nucleic acid biochemistry that are relevant to processes involving small RNA. In addition to novel research findings, the Editors of Silence are particularly interested in receiving submissions describing novel methods for analysis and manipulation of RNA-mediated regulation. Silence also encourages bioinformatic and computational methods manuscripts describing results and protocols that are accessible to molecular biologists and geneticists.

Content overview

Silence considers the following types of articles:

Research: reports of data from original research. These articles will form the major content of the journal.

Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the scope of the journal.

Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the journal's scope. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings, and are often written by opinion leaders invited by the Editorial Board.

Methodology articles: presentations of a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article should describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available.

Short reports: brief reports of data from original research.

Minireviews: usually based on one or more recently published articles interesting enough to warrant a short commentary. These articles are usually written by opinion leaders invited by the Editorial Board.

Software articles: describe the source code for new software applications, tools or algorithm implementations. Typically, an archive of the source code of the current version of the software should be included with the submitted manuscript as a supplementary file.

Peer review policy

Manuscripts are reviewed by internationally recognized experts in the field, selected in part from our Editorial Board. Reviews are rapid and the suitability of a manuscript for publication will be assessed solely on criteria of scientific excellence. Final decisions will be made by the Editors-in-Chief.

Edited by David Baulcombe and Phillip D Zamore, Silence is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Publishing in Silence

All articles are listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and are covered by PubMed Central and CAS.

Articles in Silence should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Silence 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Silence does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Silence, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Silence using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Silence is published by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is open access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Silence however, has taken this further by making all its content open access.

Silence's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

Silence is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.