EDITORIAL
The Value of Meeting Together How many of us have ever remarked, upon seeing a list of future conferences and symposia, "Wow, there are a lot of great meetings; wish I could go; there are just too many!"? The frustration is akin to progressing partway through a well-appointed buffet line only to discover that the plate is already full to overflowing. Suggestions that something be done to curb the seeming overabundance of professional meetings increasingly are being made. I t is worthwhile to remind ourselves of some of the purposes and benefits of professional conferences, meetings, and symposia. Oral presentation of research findings is a time-honored form of scientific publication. At its best, it distills the investigation so a s to highlight its important features and results, its context within a larger intellectual goal or project, and its limitations. Well-presented oral distillates can invoke a good general understanding, stimulate research ideas, and encourage listeners to read the journalpublished version. Symposia speakers are brought face to face and have a n opportunity to air differences about what is important, "correct," or useful in a field. Such important dialogue is fostered by judicious choice of symposium speakers who focus on selected areas. That the public lecturer also conveys personality, style, and intellectual scope to the scientific audience is a useful adjunct to the oral presentation. Professional conferences are a crucial way for the emerging scholar to deliver results, listen to others, and get acquainted with the "establishment" of a field. Rubbing together of elbows a n d minds is useful i n many ways to the advancement of chemical knowledge. These aspects are, of course, the shiny parts of the coin. Oral presentations are not always clear and concise; symposia can be incoherent snapshots of research results; inadequate time is set aside for
discussion and questions; often there are a s many speakers as attendees a t large meetings; opportunities for personal interactions with other researchers can be lost in the large crowd; and more meetings place more demands on our professional time and travel resources. These problems, which detract from the benefits of professional meetings and contribute to poor session attendance, can be minimized only by the continued efforts of meeting managers, symposia organizers, and session chairs to provide not just meetings but high-quality scientific discourse. Perhaps the biggest detractor to the quality of scientific discourse is the inadequacy of discussion time following paper presentations. This particular problem may deserve more emphasis than i t regularly gets. The overwhelming fact, however, is that the profusion of professional meetings and their symposia is driven by the expansion of chemical knowledge, by new areas of inquiry, and by cross-disciplinary ties to other scientific communities. These forces for expansion are powerful ones; chemistry is a n expanding science. The easiest, but not the wisest, course for the development of chemical sciences may be for chemists to champion moving to a more limited number of meetings and symposia. However, limiting the number of meetings means that they will become increasingly exclusive. Perhaps the potential loss of benefits we derive from oral communication should be considered of greater consequence than the problems and disadvantages mentioned previously. The efforts of chemists may be better spent on improved quality control of meetings than on limiting their number, and we all may need to be careful about how we fill our plates in the chemical buffet line.
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 64, NO. 5, MARCH 1, 1992
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