22 THE BIOLOGICAL LITERATURE 



hundred technical papers all somehow related to muscle contraction. 

 The author of a review article on muscle contraction examines all avail- 

 able papers on the subject in great depth and prepares a summary of 

 current thinking in the field as he sees it. The review article thus helps 

 to pull the literature together, but it is subject to the opinions and judg- 

 ment of the author. This restriction is not altogether bad because where 

 there are two schools of thought a member of the other school is likely 

 to write the next review article on the subject. 



The review paper typically contains no new data. Instead, selected 

 tables or graphs from the previously published reports may be repro- 

 duced. The review article might cover one small area completely, re- 

 viewing all the work ever done on the subject. More commonly, each 

 review paper covers the work of some brief recent period, such as the 

 previous year. The writing and publication of the review takes time, 

 so the review will be one to three years behind the original work. 



Papers in this category may be at any level of technicality. Several 

 examples of review publications are given in Table 3-1. Some are highly 

 technical; others are written for the general scientific or educated public. 

 Physiological Reviews, for example, is written for physiologists, but the 

 review articles in Scientific American are aimed at the educated public. 

 Many of the Scientific American articles succeed admirably. 



Monographs, symposia, books 



A monograph or book describing the work of one individual on one 

 subject used to be the only way of publishing scientific information. 

 Any monograph published today is usually a long review, particularly 

 covering one subject or the work of one laboratory. For example, taxo- 

 nomic biology produces monographs describing one genus or one family 

 of organisms. 



One of the relatively recent innovations in the scientific literature is 

 the symposium volume. Increased availability of funds and modern 

 rapid transportation have made it possible for institutions or societies 

 to call together the various persons working on some subject to discuss 

 recent work and problems. This meeting, or symposium, may be highly 

 formal or very loosely organized, but generally each contributor sum- 

 marizes the work of his laboratory or comments at length on interpre- 

 tations. The "minutes" of such meetings, whether as formal reports 

 or as transcriptions of informal discussions, can be exceedingly valuable. 



