402 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



There are two possible avenues of relief — a more critical examina- 

 tion and sifting of the papers submitted as to their merit, and the re- 

 quirement of greater condensation in the papers accepted for publi;- 

 cation. There is undoubted opportunity along both of these lines. 

 Greater discrimination would not only relieve the congestion but 

 would often- result in benefit to the journals and to the majority of 

 readers, and have the effect of establishing higher standards. 



No one can follow the current periodicals of natural science with- 

 out noting a great diversity in the manner of reporting scientific 

 work, and a frequent lack of proportion between space and impor- 

 tance. A prolixity is conspicuous that often robs articles of much of 

 their interest, a lack of concentration in style and upon the subject in 

 hand. 



The language of science as there expressed is often far from being 

 the clear, direct, concise thing we naturally expect it to be, consider- 

 ing the nature of science itself. Order is its first rule, the establish- 

 ment of systems of relationship. This would suggest that scientific 

 papers, in comparison with other writings, should be characterized 

 by an orderly, logical marshaling of facts, freed from extraneous and 

 confusing details, and a critical weighing of the evidence in the light 

 of theory and of what had gone before. If this were carried out it 

 is feared that many of our scientific papers would be so simplified 

 and condensed their authors would hardly recognize them and would 

 perhaps feel that they had lost much of their technical character. 



Too frequently the language of the scientific journal is quite the 

 opposite. It is, to speak quite plainly, verbose, confused by more 

 or less trivial details, and unnecessarily involved as a result of much 

 discussion and speculation and the recital of objection to the work of 

 others. It is as if the author recognized nothing else on the subject 

 as available to the reader, and were attempting not only to record 

 all of his data and their relation to previous studies, but the mental 

 stages by which he arrived at his interpretations, and to meet in 

 advance possible criticism of his procedure, his results, and his rea- 

 soning. Some papers are so diffuse and discursive that both a sum- 

 mary and a series of conclusions are deemed necessary by the authors 

 to make their claims clear. Details are recorded which can only be 

 of interest to the exceptional reader, and there is little evidence of 

 the attempt to segregate matter of permanent importance from the 

 trivial and incidental. 



This is a severe stricture. It does not of course apply to all articles 

 by any means, but to a considerable extent the practices referred to 

 appear to mark a tendency in present journal literature. Ths writ- 

 ing habit has become thoroughly established, and with it the feeling 

 that the published paper must form a complete record of work. 

 There is much padding, doubtless unconsciously in many cases, but 



