EDITORIALLY SPEAKING
T H E JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION has had its face lifted! The operation is obvious but not drastic. Rather than get tangled to the point of embarrassment, we shall let readers' imaginations pursue the metaphor of what should happen to a lady in her thirty-sixth year. (Is not a publication, like a ship, a "she"?) We hope our loyal friends of long standing are pleased. They deserve the best we can do to make our appearance attractive. Naturally we hope to make new friends. The rate a t which they have been joining our subscription list has given us the confidence to invest in the changes inaugurated with this issue. We very much want and need to know the reactions of our readers, both old and new, to the changes they see in this issue. We hope they will spend a few minutes putting their thoughts into writing for us. Only thus can the editors be saved hours of speculation about readers' pleasure or displeasure. Neither nen- friends nor old are held by appearances only. Regardless of the eyeappeal our cover may have, our main concern must be for the mind-appeal of what is inside. Here we plan no changes as abrupt as the use of a new type face for titles nor as subtle as the omission of periods from abbreviation symbols. In fact, we plan no changes a t all in editorial policy. In a very real sense it is double talk to say that an editorial policy can be other than to change. We have often referred to the tradition on which our illusOF CHEMICAL trious predecessors built: "the JOURNAL EDUCATION is a living textbook of chemistry." The word "living" is almost redundant when the phrase "of chemistry" modifies textbook. Chemistry chnnges. Our obligation, first of all, is to make the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION accurately reflect the proqress which is inevitably a part of chemistry and chemistry teaching.
Every year a Notice to Authors appears (see page 639 of the December 1958 issue). Correspondents often have advised us to publish "Suggestions to Prospective Authors" whieh could serve as a basis for pre-
liminary liaison between contributors and this office. Perhaps the nearest thing to a policy is that implied by the statement prepared to accompany manuscripts to the desk of referees. We reprint it here: Acceptability for publication in the JOURNAL or C R E ~ C A L EDUCATION depends on meeting three criteria: (1) accuracy, (2) clarity, and (3) appeal to reader interest. Editorial decisions are easiest to make for (I),most difficult for (3). The increasing excess of material submitted over the space available for publication means that most questionable caaes are decided by application of criterion (3). Your consideration of the following questions where pertinent will help to make your evaluation most oseful. Does the author's treatment of his topic: appear accurate in all respects? seem to have ssorifioed clarity for conciseness or does it sound too verbose and wandering to be worth the space? consider the existing literature adequately? adequately recognize and complement what has appeared in THIS JOURNAL, especially in recent years? make sense to the "informed nonspecialist"? Is i t written at a level between that of the authority addreasing other specialists (as in Chemical Reviews) and that of the reporter for a. science n e m service? have an adequate introduction which states a rationale for the article? Does the introduction start a t the proper level of background information for the average reader and lead him slowly but surely beyond his depth into new informrttion, or does it plunge him immediately into a specittlty? in the case of s, laboratory experiment or description of novel equipment, suggest a type of activity which will urge the reader to use his own ingenuity rather than merely t ~ ocopy?
If there is any question of what we mean by the above, we gladly refer readers to the contents of this issue for illu&ratiou. A symposium on the chemistry of man-made elements would have been sheer speculation a few decades ago. A feature series on Chemical Instrumentation would have exhausted its topic in a few issues. The ingenuity reflected in the start of a fifth consecutive year of Tested Demonstrations would have been hard to discover. Chemistry is very much alive and growing. We hope THIS JOURNAL gives that impression too.
Volume 36, Number
I , Jonwry 1959
/
1
