11 



reprint all the abstracts and completely index 

 them, we shall have gone far toward making 

 our scientific information service really effi- 

 cient. And because of the cooperation in- 

 volved, it will require less effort to maintain 

 than our present much less efficient service. 



SUGGESTIONS AND RULES FOR PREPARING 

 ANALYTIC ABSTRACTS 



The preparation of an abstract naturally 

 proceeds in four steps, as follows : 



1. Xotes. — First I read the article carefully, 

 making notes covering all the new information 

 which I find in it, keeping an especially sharp 

 lookout for new incidental results or sugges- 

 tions not directly related to the main subject 

 of the paper. These notes are rough and in- 

 tended merely as memory aids. If this search 

 is not thorough, the abstract will probably be 

 incomplete. 



ErLE 1. Material not new need not be analyzed 

 or described; a valuable summary of previous work, 

 however, should be noted with a statement indicat- 

 ing its nature and scope. 



2. Suh titles. — 'Next comes the analysis of 

 the information and the formulation of the 

 subtitles. I ask myself to what subject do the 

 main results of the article relate. Perhaps it 

 is " the atomic weight of iodine." Are all 

 phases of this subject included or only cer- 

 tain ones? In this case a new method of de- 

 termination is described and also a series of 

 experimental results obtained by that method. 

 Therefore I make the subtitle more precise by 

 adding the necessary phrases, in this case 

 " pentoxide method " and " determinations." 

 This disposes of' the main subject. But are 

 there any results which do not belong under 

 the main subtitle ? If so, to what subject or 

 subjects do they relate? I write them down: 

 " Iodine pentoxide " ; " Occlusion of oxygen 

 by glass, etc.," or whatever they may be, and 



