ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 



PHILADELPHIA, PA., NOVEMBER, 1921. 



The Abstracting of Scientific. Papers 



In the NEWS for October we called attention to an apparent 

 improvement of scientific papers if the figures relating to dif- 

 ferent species on the same plate were briefly labeled to indicate 

 the specific name. The time to be saved and the annovance to 



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be avoided by such a simple addition constitute advantages to 

 the busy man of the same kind as, although far less important 

 than, those which result from prefixing abstracts to articles. 

 We are moved to this remark by an article in Science for Sep- 

 tember 30, 1921, entitled "Scientific Abstracting," by Gordon 

 S. Fulcher, and we recommend its perusal to all who produce 

 and use scientific literature. It poses the question : "Is it worth 

 while for scientific journals to provide abstracts at the begin- 

 ning of their articles?" Part of the answer is: 



. . . suppose each abstract describes the contents of the article so 

 completely and precisely that any reader can tell with assurance whether 

 the article contains any results of interest to him, and suppose it sum- 

 marizes the methods, conclusions and theories so as to give all the 

 information any reader not a specialist in the narrow field involved 

 needs ; . . . \vould not such abstracts enable the reader to grasp 

 the significant results in the articles not only more quickly but more- 

 completely and clearly than by skimming through the' articles ? Such 

 abstracts would save much time for the scientist not only as a reader 

 of current literature but also as an investigator. 



The form of abstracts is considered in detail and many sug- 

 gestions are made for which we cannot find space here. The 

 editor of the NEWS is in sympathy with the preliminary ab- 

 stract idea and has made a beginning in practice.* The longer 

 an article, the more desirable that it should have an abstract 

 prefixed. Articles in this journal are by necessity short, but it 

 may well be considered whether preliminary abstracts would 

 not add to the usefulness of at least some of the contributions 

 to the NEWS. 



*Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc., xlvi, p. 323, 1920. 



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