Last week saw the launch of the EQUATOR website that aims to provide resources for good reporting of health research. EQUATOR pulls together in one place the bewildering number of guidelines that are now available. These guidelines now cover a huge range of study designs. CONSORT (for reporting of clinical trials) and its offspring for other trial designs are probably the best known; other lesser known, but more charmingly named ones include MOOSE for Meta-analyses of observational studies) and STARLITE for proposed standards for reporting of literature searches. Whatever your study design, it’s likely someone has suggested standards for it. So, like many other journals we ask authors to consider guidelines before submitting studies. Some such as CONSORT we think are essential, others are for advice only. In the end, though, all the guidelines have the same aim: to help authors write clearer papers so that readers can understand the work more fully.
In future the site will also include other resources for authors, editors and developers of other guidelines. The site’s developers are keen to get feedback from users of the site.