Journal Discussion Papers

Meetings at which papers are presented and discussed live and then published in the appropriate series of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society together with the discussion and authors' replies ('Ordinary Meetings') are held about 10 times a year. Usually, about half of these meetings are organized by the Society's Research Section. Meetings may be immediately preceded by an informal session on the issues raised by the papers.

Preprints of the papers can usually be obtained at least 2 weeks before the meetings. To join the list to receive them in electronic form, contact Abdel Khairoun at journal@rss.org.uk. A list of papers presented at Research Section Ordinary Meetings since 2000 is also available.

Information about the criteria for papers and the conduct of the meetings [PDF, 46 KB] is available to download. The papers span a very wide range of topics and those which may be suitable fall into any of the following guideline categories: a study of an applied statistical problem of sufficient general interest to warrant discussion and publication; new methodology; interesting and new applications of existing methodology; issues of general interest to statisticians, especially if a wide variety of views is to be found; work concerned with the interface between statistics and other fields; 'state of the art' reviews and critical studies of an area of economic, scientific or social interest.

Papers which are read to the Society are of a nature which will stimulate constructive discussion. They must not exceed 12000 words (or 20 printed pages) in length.

Notes for the guidance of authors [PDF, 163 KB] who would like to submit their papers for reading and an electronic style file [ZIP, 85 KB] are available. As for ordinary papers, the submission of manuscripts should be in electronic form. Please refer to the terms of reference of the series and their editorial panels to ascertain which journal would be appropriate for your manuscript