Hi-printed from SCIENCE, pages 678-680, Vol. LVI, 

 No. 1459, December 13, 1922. 



THE USEFULNESS OF ANALYTIC 

 ABSTRACTS 



THE various ways in which preliminary ab- 

 stracts should be of service to scientific readers 

 were pointed out about a year ago 1 , but whether 

 such abstracts as actually prepared and pub- 

 lished Avould 'be worth while could be deter- 

 mined only by experiment. This has been 

 done. After analytic abstracts had been ap- 

 pearing in the Astro physical Journal and the 

 Physical Review 2 for over two years the fol- 

 lowing return post-card questionnaire was sent 

 by the chairman of the Division of Physical 

 Sciences of the National Research Council to 

 each reader, with the request that he under- 

 score in each parenthesis the word or words 

 which represent his answer to the question im- 

 plied : 



I look through (the Astro-physical Journal, the 

 Physical Review) regularly. Before reading the 

 articles, I read the abstracts (always, usually, 

 sometimes, seldom, never). Instead of reading 

 the articles, I read the abstracts in (many, some, 

 few, no) cases. The abstracts have helped me 

 understand the articles in (some, few, no) cases. 

 The abstracts have proved useful in locating in- 

 formation in (some, few, no) eases. I read the 

 subtitles in the abstracts first (sometimes, never). 

 I find the subtitles of value as an index of the 



i ' ' Scientific Abstracting " by G. S. Fulcher, 

 SCIENCE 54, 291, September 30, 1921. 



2 The preliminary abstracts in the Physical Re- 

 view are called "Synopses" to distinguish them 

 from the abstracts of papers presented at meet- 

 ings which are printed in connection with the 

 proceedings of the Society. 

 i 



