Editorial Cite This: Acc. Chem. Res. 2018, 51, 1−2
pubs.acs.org/accounts
Accounts: 50 Years of a Great Idea s we enter the 51st year of publishing Accounts of Chemical Research, I remain struck by what a great idea Joe Bunnett (and colleagues) had back in the mid-1960s to begin publishing a journal comprising short articles that summarize a current research topic in which the author is a world expert. With the understanding that not every reader has the time to become an expert, Accounts offer a quick entry into the field, giving a little historical background as well as, mainly, current progress and future prospects. The subject is one in which the author has already published key papers in the field that can now be critically analyzed and summarized in an Account. Our sister journal, Chemical Reviews, had already been publishing comprehensive reviews for well over 50 years by the time Accounts entered the scene with short reviews focused on one lab or one collaborative group. Accounts quickly became required reading. I will date myself by saying that JACS and Accounts were the two journals I personally subscribed to, in print form, in graduate school. Accounts of Chemical Research was such a great idea that in the past few decades many other journals have joined in by adding more personalized, topical review content to their venues. Out of the 53 journals currently published by the American Chemical Society, 51 of them publish review-like content, including • Perspectives • Viewpoints • Reviews • Tutorials • Commentaries • Fora • Synopses • Outlooks • Invited spotlights • First reactions • Accounts (3 journals total) Each of these article types has a slightly different definition; some are more focused on the work of one laboratory (e.g., Accounts), whereas others expect a critical viewpoint on what a number of laboratories are publishing on a current topic (e.g., Perspectives). The nuances among all these article types can be subtle. The Venn diagram in Figure 1 gives my “perspective” on
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how these article-types interrelate. For example, nearly 30 ACS journals publish perspectives, which are typically defined as review articles that focus on a current research topic and point to key advances, both recent and needed in the near future. In this sense, they represent a somewhat expanded version of an Account; for the latter, more discussion is given to the author’s own research project, much as in a research seminar. Viewpoints, commentaries, and forum articles typically describe a narrower and potentially more controversial topic, although we do encourage controversy in Accounts, as well. Importantly, we hope that Accounts also function as tutorials that instruct a newcomer to the field about key advances and future goals. For this reason, we ask authors of manuscripts to write toward a graduate student-level audience such that readership can be broad across many disciplines of chemical sciences. The adoption of review-like content across many journals benefits the individual communities served by these journals by highlighting current research problems and novel approaches to their solution in particular fields of chemistry. For Accounts of Chemical Research, our goal is to provide accessible content that any chemist can read, not just a specialist in a particular subdiscipline. The success of the “Accounts-like” article style is evident in the number of journals that now publish invited review content. Indeed, journal editors now compete for the very best authors, as the explosion of invitations continues across so many journals that, on the one hand, are valiantly trying to build community and, on the other, are hoping to boost impact factors at the same time. Perhaps due to the large number of invitations being juggled by productive principal investigators, a notable change has taken place in authorship. Early volumes of Accounts in the 1960s and 1970s show that articles were typically authored by a single PI. In 2017, the single-author Account, though encouraged, is a rarity. It can be a great experience for senior graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to participate in drafting an Account; we do hope that the PI takes the lead in critically analyzing and editing the manuscript to the level of scholarship we expect. We also wish to remind authors that coauthorship of an Account, review, tutorial, etc., implies that the coauthor played a major role in the intellectual aspects of drafting the manuscript. Preparation of figures and coauthorship of a previous article reviewed in the Account are not reasons that warrant coauthorship of the review. Accounts celebrated its 50th year with a Presidential Symposium and Champagne Poster Session at the Spring National Meeting of the ACS in April 2017. A culminating activity was the publication of the March 2017 special issue “Holy Grails in Chemistry”, featuring about 40 short commentaries on current challenges in molecular science. As we begin the 51st year, I thank my predecessors Joe Bunnett, Fred McLafferty, and Joan Valentine and their editorial teams
Figure 1. Overlapping concepts in review-like content of ACS journals, in the author’s view. © 2018 American Chemical Society
Received: December 27, 2017 Published: January 16, 2018 1
DOI: 10.1021/acs.accounts.7b00637 Acc. Chem. Res. 2018, 51, 1−2
Accounts of Chemical Research
Editorial
for their extraordinary vision in creating and evolving Accounts as a popular and successful forum for invited, focused reviews.
Cynthia J. Burrows, Editor
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University of Utah
AUTHOR INFORMATION
ORCID
Cynthia J. Burrows: 0000-0001-7253-8529 Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.accounts.7b00637 Acc. Chem. Res. 2018, 51, 1−2
