ACCOUNTS OF CHEXICAL RESEARCH@ Registered in U S . Patent and Trademark Office;Copyright 1982 by the American Chemical Society
VOLUME 15 EDITOR JOSEPH F. BUNNETT ASSOCIATE EDITORS Joel E. Keizer John E. McMurry EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Fred Basolo R. Stephen Berry Michel Boudart Maurice M. Bursey Edward A. Collins John T. Gerig Jenny P. Glusker Kendall N. Houk Jay K. Kochi Maurice M. Kreevoy Theodore Kuwana Ronald N. McElhaney Eva L. Menger Kurt Mislow John C. Polanyi Alexander Rich Anthony M. Trozzolo Gene G. Wubbels Published by the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY 1155 16th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036
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NUMBER 7
JULY, 1982
Preliminary Disclosure for the Cardinals? Full Papers for the Novices? I have implied that rather few of the preliminary communications published indeed deserve to appear.’ Standard papers ought to appear only once, in detail. Of the thousands of curt preliminary communications that appear annually, only a small fraction are written by the leaders of the respective fields of chemistry. (In my own field, these are sometimes irreverently called the Cardinals; the late R. B. Woodward was the Pope.) Their announcements were and are worthy of attention and study. Since communications must be short, Editors have rightly cooperated in bypassing bureaucratic limitations by allowing a connected set of communications to appear side by side. The trouble that arises is not instigated by the Editor; it is usually created by the author, by misdeed no less than by deed. Having published their important preliminary communications, many of the Cardinals appear to feel that their duty to their more ordinary colleagues and to chemistry is done. The time has come to remind them of the old-fashioned custom of scientists to report their work in full experimental detail to enable its repetition by anyone who chooses t o repeat it. Philosophically, practical fulfilment of this duty is a guarantee for the operation of truth in science. Chemistry too has had its charlatans.* I submit that many Cardinals and the late Pope in my own field have allowed it to become a trademark of illustrious chemists to publish 10 preliminary communications, say in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, before submitting one detailed paper (if one!) covering a portion of this work. We are now aware of the difficulties that had to be overcome in order to assure eventual publication of Woodward’s chlorophyll and B12work. Many of the Cardinals, too many of them, appear to award an all too low priority to the writing of a detailed paper. It has even been whispered that delaying such disclosure gives one an edge over one’s competitors. Such motivation, if it exists, is wrong. It is also wrong to train students to follow the warped ways of such masters and prolong this behavior in later generations. I submit that, over the years, Editors might have evolved a policy to exert sufficient control in this matter for the good of the whole chemical community. Since they have not yet done so, they should set one up and clarify to authors, whether Cardinals or Novices, that within n years the material published in each of their preliminary communications must be submitted for publication in detailed form. In this age of computerization a file can easily be kept for each of the illustrious leaders and pathfinders. When they are helped to do their duty, the next generation of illustrious followers will also learn to keep itself in check. One of the tenets of science will then be honored more in the practice than in the breach. The value of n must be decided. When it has been exceeded, the sanction of universal rejection (by all journals) of any further preliminary communication must be invoked in order to enforce the operational philosophy of making full disclosure of research results by prince and plebe alike. Of course, since in sheer numbers there are more full papers by the latter, Editors will raise standards by having more papers by the former. David Ginsburg Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Haifa (1) Ginsburg, D. Chem. Br. 1982, 18, 27. (2) Cf.: Cornforth, J.; Pengelly, T. Tetrahedron Lett. 1982, 23, 2213.
