Opening the garden gate.

During the past several months, we have been working to build a new infrastructure to produce what you read each month. This is not the big "ta da" ... yet. We are developing a new garden, and that involves preparing the soil, sowing new varieties of seeds, and transplanting some of the established plants. As a novice Editor in Chief, I have sought help from many sources in the effort to understand soil conditions, necessary nutrients, and predictions of climate change.

You began to see some changes in the July issue. When you look at our masthead, you see that we now have a Steering Committee (Anthony Delitto, PT, PhD, FAPTA, chair; Alan Jette, PT, PhD, FAPTA; Charles Magistro, PT, FAPTA; Carolynn Patten, PT, PhD; Ruth Purtilo, PT, PhD, FAPTA; and Julie Whitman, PT, DSc, OCS). I am delighted to welcome this august group and look forward to their "big picture" view and their expansive ideas. During the past few months, Tony Delitto and I have discussed transforming the Journal from a passive repository of knowledge into a dynamic tool that integrates new knowledge and clinical practice in a meaningful way. With this vision in mind, 2 broad goals have become the focus of PTJ's activities: (1) to attract the best work, and (2) to make the Journal relevant to the consumer--the clinician, the scientist, and the patient/client. The Steering Committee members were selected because I believe their expertise will help us make the transformation.

In this issue, you have the initial fruits of our labor: some of the articles have a feature called "The Bottom Line," a clinical summary that highlights the take-home message for clinicians. (See pages 1076, 1092, and 1108.) For these, I thank the members of another new group--The Bottom Line Committee--who worked with Tony Delitto at PT 2006 in Orlando to develop an experimental model for these summaries.

You also will note changes in the Editorial Board. It wasn't easy to change the membership of this board when every member has content expertise and substantive experience with PTJ and has kept the Journal going through incredibly challenging times; but change, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, revitalizes journals as well as gardens. I want to thank every member of the Editorial Board for their hard work, particularly those who have rotated off the board: Pamela Levangie, PT, DSc, and Jessie VanSwearingen, PT, PhD, who served for 5 and 3 years, respectively. Pam and Jessie recommended decisions on a total of almost 200 manuscripts and spent countless hours mentoring authors.

I also would like to thank Chuck Ciccone, PT, PhD, and the advisory group that spearheaded Evidence in Practice during the past couple of years: Lisa Chiarello, PT, PhD, PCS; Patricia Ohtake, PT, PhD; Lisa Riolo, PT, PhD, NCS; and David Scalzitti, PT, MS, OCS. "EiP" was very popular among many of our readers and introduced them to the process of searching for evidence as part of the clinical decision-making process. Likewise, I thank Irene McEwen, PT, PhD, who, in her role as editor for case reports and as editor of APTA's Writing Case Reports: A How-to Manual for Clinicians, refined the format of case reports so that the reader could replicate the described interventions in clinical practice. We are no longer accepting new Evidence in Practice manuscripts, because it is time to address clinical decision-making strategies in a different way; and we are taking a fresh look at many of our article categories, including case reports, as we reassess the way that clinicians and researchers use content.

I'm excited that new people with a variety of content expertise already have joined the Editorial Board; you'll find out more about them next month. In addition, watch for PTJ's new Web site in September, when we move to the HighWire Press platform! HighWire Press hosts rich, highly interactive sites for such journals as BMJ, JAMA, and New England Journal of Medicine.

The editors, Editorial Board, and staff are committed to doing their very best to nurture this new garden, but you--the authors and consumers--must help as well. Having lived on a farm for more than 20 years, I always think in terms of plants. Did you know that it takes an average of 22 bees just to produce one robust cucumber? There are many factors that determine the success of a garden, some obvious, and some not so obvious. Journals are the same way. To deliver the content that readers need, each issue depends on the interplay of many things, but most especially, it requires the best authors. And, like a cucumber vine, a journal needs people to harvest its content, or it will wither. Our goal is for you to find vital, relevant material in PTJ to use in the clinic, the classroom, or the research laboratory.

Pests and weeds will quickly choke the growth of all of the new plants in this garden; if you disagree with our publication policies or don't understand what you are reading, you need to talk to us. PTJ will flourish only with attention from all constituents. To start, tell us what you think about The Bottom Line.

Rebecca L Craik, PT, PhD, FAPTA

Editor in Chief

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