This June issue of Oceanography offers a good reminder that there are many ways in which the magazine provides a vehicle for communication across the ocean sciences. In addition to the special issue articles, there are two regular issue features, the annual Revelle Lecture, an ocean policy article, two Rip Current news items, and a couple of book reviews and career profiles, plus contributions by our regular Ripple Marks and Oceanography Classroom columnists. Here, I want to put in an extra plug for more Rip Current news items from the community.

Rip Current news items—peer-reviewed articles that are up to three magazine pages long—are not a new feature of Oceanography. We’ve repackaged what we used to call “News and Information” in the Author Guidelines. Because of several recent inquiries as to whether we publish such short articles, we retitled the department and upgraded the information provided on the Web. Specifically, Rip Current articles should be no more than 1,500 words, including author information, any acknowledgements (including grant numbers), references, and figure captions. We limit the number of figures to two. There is no cost to publish a Rip Current article. Because of the short length of these articles, we endeavor to provide peer review within two weeks, and we publish the news online immediately on our Early Release page. We also link to the articles via TOS social media and email tools. And, of course, because we are open access, anyone can read the article on the Web.

We’d like to see more Rip Current contributions in Oceanography. Perhaps you have a small gem just waiting to share with us? If so, please submit it to me at [email protected].

– Ellen S. Kappel, Editor

Kappel, E.S. 2013. Quarterdeck—Rip Current: Getting your oceanography news posted quickly. Oceanography 26(2):5, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2013.21.

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