Chemical Editing' SIDNEY D. KIRKPATRICK Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering, New York City
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FTER a year as a graduate assistant in the old Illinots State Water Survey I was promoted to become "Assistant Chemist and Editor." The and Editor part of the title was the idea of our former A. C. S. president, Dr. Edward Bartow, who discovered that he had a drawer full of unpublished manuscripts, and his annual report to the Governor was a month overdue. I was glad to pitch in and help for I, too, had made a discovery. I had found that what had been a hobby in high school and a not unprofitable extra-cumcular activity in college had a marketable value in the chemical world. People who were too busy to write reports, or would put them off as laborious drudgery, were willing to pay real money to have someone help them express their thoughts. Note that in my title there was "Assistant" before "Chemist," but no similar qualification described my job as "Editor." So, from choice, I quickly graduated from the laboratory wbere there were a half dozen "assistant chemists," and moved into the Director's outer office where there was only one editor, and I was it. I really had a lot of fun and satisfaction out of my job until the boss went overseas as Major Bartow (later Lieutenant Colonel) in the Sanitary Corps, A. E. F. Next, I drifted or was drafted into a job with Dr. Grinnell Jones (of Harvard) in the U. S. Tariff Commission, and the first thing that was dumped on my desk was a mass of questionnaires that needed compilation, interpretation, and prompt publication. So I had the honor of writing "Tariff information survey no. 1," and of helping on that first "Census of dyes and coal-tar chemicals." Much better ones have since been written and edited, but there is some satisfaction in having been in a t the beginning. Other jobs came along in due course, and in each I found that even though some of my laboratory friends were inclined to make rather slighting remarks about graphite-cellulose chemists, nevertheless there were always fertile fields awaiting editorial cultivation. Significantly, the fellows that seemed to be getting ahead fastest and farthest were those that developed the habit of expressing themselves clearly and convincingly in both oral and written reports. They early learned that the way to learn to write is to write. Instead of putting it off as so much drudgery, the writing of their reports was welcomed as an opportunity to clarPresented before the Division of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society. 107th meeting, Cleveland, Ohio, April 3, 1944.
ify their own thinking and, therefore, to make their work more effective. Apparently this paper started out to be an autobiography and has now degenerated into a sermon on oral and written expression. Neither was so intended. Rather, I merely wanted to use my own humdrum experiences to emphasize, if I could, that some chemical editing is or should be a part of every technical man's stock in trade. And the better editor he is, the better he is able to express himself, the greater will be his opportunity to get ahead in his chosen profession. I was asked to say something about the field for editors with chemical or chemical engineering training. One thinks immediately of the chemical and chemical engineering journals, but there are only eight or ten of them which employ full-time editors, so that particular field is rather narrow and specialized. I doubt if there are more than 50 or 60 graduate chemists or chemical engineers so employed. On the other hand, there are perhaps a couple hundred chemical editors when you broaden the field to include the trade and technical journals in process industries, such as petroleum, paper, paint and varnish, foods, and textiles. An even larger group will be found in the company publicity and advertising departments wbere their duties often include the editing of house organs (of which there are thousands), and of company catalogs, the preparation of news releases, and, occasionally, even the ghost writing of speeches and books. The Editors' Union, if there is any, would probably classify some of these as technicians and subprofessionals. So far I've been talking about professional editors. How about the amateurs? They are the ones in my opinion who can do the most good for themselves and for the chemical profession. There's scarcely a job in chemical industry that could not be made a little r o r e satisfying and profitable if its occupant could develop the ability to tell the world about it. Chemical editing begins a t home. It's part of everybody's job. Therefore, I think i t is a mistake to urge that thc chemistry and chemical engineering departments of our universities should set up auxiliary courses in chemical journalism. There are too many diversions already. The important thing, i t seems to me, is tn make certain that the student gets his fundamental scientific and engineering training, but a t the same timp is taught that their value to him and to the profession will depend to a considerable extent on his ability to express his thoughts in a clear, concise, and convincing manner.
