BAMS Submission Types

Proposals are required prior to submitting full manuscripts to BAMS, with the exception of corrigenda, Meeting Summaries, and Comments, which can be submitted in full without a proposal.

The BAMS readership is broader than that of the AMS technical journals, spanning the AMS communities and beyond. BAMS covers a wide range of topics for a diverse community of readers—researchers, students, teachers, and practitioners. BAMS also reaches beyond the immediate AMS community to policy makers, the media, and ultimately, the public that funds and applies the science. Authors should write with this broad audience in mind, following the guidelines in Writing for BAMS.

• Articles: The main category of substantive peer-reviewed manuscripts. Authors should justify any length beyond about 4500 words in their Proposals. The maximum length of 7500 words (abstract and references do not count toward the length limit) is for rare and strongly justified cases, and only with the permission from the Chair of the Editorial Board. NOTE: BAMS Articles are required to include a Significance Statement.
• Essays: Based on experience, opinion, and qualitative or quantitative analysis, these peer-reviewed contributions are designated as a “Forum” within the Articles section. The maximum is 5000 words (but shorter is much better).
• Comment and Reply Exchanges: Comments are written in response to articles published in BAMS and should be submitted within 2 years of the publication date of the original article (although the editor can waive this limit in extenuating circumstances). The author of the original article has the opportunity to write a Reply. These exchanges are published together.
• Corrigenda: The corrigendum article type is available for authors to address errors discovered in already published articles. For more information, see Corrigenda.
• In Box: Short peer-reviewed dispatches (of up to 3000–3500 words with 4 or fewer figures and/or tables) on innovations and insights:
  • “Innovations”: Describe projects, products, and ideas that are breaking new ground for our sciences and services. Quickly and broadly sketch for readers what is new and unusual about what you are doing or proposing.
  • “Insights”: Explore new directions for our field, trends, markets, priorities, and accomplishments, or describe projects and products with an emphasis on what has been learned from this work (and what readers can learn). Aim to inspire by showing examples.

Choosing between Article and In Box: To achieve brevity and general interest among busy readers, In Box articles are necessarily less formal in tone and not conducive to detailed description, documentation, or analysis. These articles are meant to spark interest in further exploration. They keep readers apprised of developments and issues that are evolving in our community and science. They are peer-reviewed, but not comprehensive. Please discuss this decision with the BAMS Editorial Board Chair at the proposal stage.

• Map Room: Short peer-reviewed discussion of interesting forecast situations and applications. Particularly targeted toward operational meteorologists as well as up-and-coming forecasters and students, this section features interesting forecast situations in relatively straightforward language. It is akin to a “map room” briefing with good visual documentation, with a discussion of models where necessary. Emphasis is primarily on concepts: lessons learned or applications of science to everyday or unusual weather scenarios. These articles are up to 3000–3500 words; the number of figures or tables depends on content but should be relatively few.
• Meeting Summaries: Synthesis of a recent meeting or workshop Readers want to know what participants reported and decided, but need your meeting summary to combine these individual points into the higher level, take-away messages. State briefly the scientific context and motivation for the gathering. Do not try to cover every presentation or outline the agenda. Focus on what happened, not what was intended. The best Meeting Summaries read like a letter from a participant to a colleague who could not attend. Meeting Summaries must
  • be submitted via the BAMS Editorial Manager in a format that meets all BAMS requirements;
  • be less than 3000 words, not counting title, information box, and references;
  • be submitted within six months of the date of the meeting;
  • provide the name of at least one participant of the meeting or workshop—not including the authors—who has read the summary and verified the accuracy of the contents prior to submission; and
  • follow the format of recently published summaries. Note the style of the title (convey the general topic, not simply the name of the meeting) and the “What, When, Where” information box. The information box leads with the title of the meeting.

  Authors may supplement their Meeting Summaries with documents, tables, or figures.

  Meeting Summaries are expedited for prompt posting in AMS Early Online Releases and final publication.

  Sometimes authors wish to prepare special types of high-interest contributions (not fitting the above guidelines) based on a meeting. Please submit an Article or In Box proposal first if you would like to do so. These manuscripts tend to be

  • Informal overviews of a discipline or pressing challenge, with recommendations from a group of authors stemming from a workshop or meeting.
  • Group statements or reports focusing on recommendations or other opinion essays or white papers. These may represent a consensus or a broad selection of diverse views formulated at a meeting or workshop.
  • In consultation with the BAMS Editorial Board Chair, the authors may choose to write a fast-track report for the Meeting Summary section and also submit (possibly at a later time) a related essay for publication in another section of BAMS.