Significance Statements Communicate Our Science More Widely

Authors

Rezaul Mahmood, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

11-2020

Citation

Earth Interactions, Volume 24: Issue 5. Published 1 Nov 2020.

Comments

Copyright © 2020 American Meteorological Society. Used by permission.

Abstract

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) mission statement specifically calls for advancing ‘‘the atmospheric and related sciences . . . for the benefit of society.’’ To further the goal of communicating the importance of the science in our journals more widely, AMS is encouraging the inclusion in submitted papers of a ‘‘significance statement,’’ written in plain language and aimed at an educated layperson without formal training or education in the atmospheric and related sciences. As of 6 November 2020, Earth Interactions authors now have the option to include a significance statement with their submitted papers. A significance statement is an explanation of why the research or development described in an AMS journal article is important. It should be written in nontechnical language, should focus on why the work matters, and should provide additional context for why the work is relevant to science and society. The significance statement will appear after the abstract in the published paper. The statement should be 120 words or fewer and does not count toward the manuscript word limit. The editor and peer reviewers who evaluate the paper will also review the significance statement. Further information about significance statements, guidance about how to write one, and examples can be found on the following AMS web page: https://ametsoc.org/SignificanceStatements. Although including a significance statement is optional for submissions to Earth Interactions, I encourage authors of even highly technical articles to try to communicate the significance of their results to a broader audience. Doing so will help our readers to understand the value of our science.