ANALVTICAL CHEMISTRV EDITORIAL
January 1970,Vol. 42, NO.1 Editor:
HERBERT A. LAITINEN
EDITORIAL HEADQUARTERS Washington D C 20036 1155 SiteeAth 5 ; N W. Phone: 202-731-2333 Teletype: WA 23 Managing Editor: John K. Crum Associate Editor: Virginia E. Stewart Editorial ASSiBtantB: Eugenie C. Cdhghan. Sylvia Crawford Contributing Editor: Ralph H.. M& (Departplent of Chemistry, Loluslana Stab University, Baton Rouge) PRODUCTION STAFF Director of Design: Joseph Jamha Production Manager: B a d G d w ABBOCiate Production Manager: Charlotte C. Sayre Art a n d Layout: Norman W. F a d NEWYORK OFFICE 733 Third Aveme New York, N.Y. 10017 212-867-3161 Associate Editor: Josephine M. Petruzzi PRODUC~ION OFFICE, EAWON,PA. EDITORIAL Assistant Editor: Elizabeth R. Rufe ADVISORY BOARD: Norman G. Andemn, Klaua Biemann L Fritz John F&&%r,C%%c%%$; Wal& E Harris Joseph Jordan, W. Wayne Meinke, R. A. bsteryoung, €2. L. Pecspk, Edwin P. Przyb loancz, A. Srmth, Samuel M. Tuthig, Jamea D. Wmefordner
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS Director of Publications, Richard L. Kenyon Director of Business Operations, Joseph H. Kuney Publication Manager, Journals, D a n d E. Gushee Executive Assistant to :he Director of Publications, Rodney N. Hader Circulation Dimtor, Herbert C. Spencer Assistant to the Director of Publication#, William Q. Hull REGIONAL EDITORIAL BUREAUS PHILADELPHIA Pa. 19107. Philadelphia Natiohal Bank Budding Broad & Cheatnut Streets CHICAGO, Ill. 60603 36 South Wabash Ave. S A N FRANCISCO, Cali. 94104 57 Post St. LOS ANGELES, Calif. 9ooo5 422 South Weatern Ave. HOUSTON, Texas 77002 514 Main Bldg. 1212Main St. FRANKFURT/MAIN, West Germany 32 Grosse Bockenheimerstraeae LONDON, W. C. 2, England 27 John Adam St. TOKYO Japan I i u r a Cintral Build?& 4th Floor 12 Iikura Kata-mactu, Azabu Minato-ku, Tokyo Advertising Management REINHOLD PUBLISHING CORP. (for Branch 05w,see page 136 A)
For submission of manuscripts, see page 4 A .
THE DOUGHNUT OR THE HOLE? n fa letter to the Editor of C&EN [Nov. 10, 1969, pp 6-81, a reader remarked that he had scanned the Briefs in a recent issue of ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY for possible use in his work. He expressed disappointment that 37 out of 49 articles proved to be inapplicable to his job. When we consider the positive, rather than the negative, aspects of his findings, 12 articles proved to be relevant to his needs. How does this stack up in comparison with the experiences of other readers of this journal or of other scientific research journals? For the past two years, we have sponsored a series of surveys of the CHEMISTRY. These surveys have been carried readership of ANALYTICAL out by a professional polling service by means of personal interviews with a representative sample of readers. We shall have occasion to present various aspects of the detailed findings of the surveys in future issues, but for the present we shall refer to the results of a single question, “Which articles (if any) in this issue were relevant t o your job?” This was done by looking a t the Ttable of Contents of the particular issue under study. A typical response (for the July 1969 issue) was that 95% of respondents found one or more iarticles relevant to their jobs; 80% found 4 or more, 54% 6 or more, 18% 12 or more and so on to 6%, who found 20 or more articles relevant. Thus, our complaining reader is finding more relevance than the majority of our readership. The question is whether we should look upon the findings with satisfaction or dissatisfaction. With a broad-based journal such as ours, it is perhaps undersbandable that a given article may appear relevant to only a minority of readers. But are we unusual? A similar survey was carried out on the November 1968 issue of the Journal of Organic Chemistry. Here the readers were asked whether they had commenced reading, and whether they had completed reading, 25% , 50% , 75% , or 100% of each article. For the average article, 17% of readers had commenced reading it, and 5 % had read 50% or more of it. However, every article in the issue had been completely read by a t least one out of the sample of 281 readers interviewed. We conclude that in an age of increasing specialization, a research journal devoted to any broad branch of chemistry cannot hope to reach all, or even a majority, of its readers with every article. Nevertheless, the happy (accident of finding an unexpected new approach to a problem is encouraged by the appearance of the widest variety of articles in close proximity within each branch of chemistry. The broad-based research journal, then, serves to combat overspecialization at the cost of carrying many larticles that may appear to any particular reader to be irrelevant to his job.
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