December 15, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



679 



instead of many of the articles '«y 45 per cent. ; 

 and have been found helpful in other ways by 

 59 per cent., they have evidently proved of de- 

 cided value. In what ways? According to the 

 testimony of the readers : "They are great time 

 savers"; "They frequently give all information 

 necessary about the articles"; "They double a 

 man's range of reading." Moreover, the ab- 

 stracts have been copied verbatim in Science 

 Abstracts and have thus reduced the labor of 

 preparing that abstract journal by ten per 

 cent. The abstracts have therefore to seme 

 extent fulfilled their purpose of saving the 

 time of seientifie men. 



How about other sciences? Are astronomy 

 and physics essentially different from chem- 

 istry, botany, zoology, geology, physiology, 

 etc., in their methods of disseminating scientific 

 information? If 93 per cent, of the readers 

 of these astronomical and physical journals 

 find that preliminary abstracts are useful to 

 them, would not the great majority of other 

 scientific readers also find such abstracts use- 

 ful? The responsibility resting upon the 

 editors of other scientific journals is clear. 



Now as to the nature of the abstracts which 

 should be provided. The abstracts which have 

 been appearing in the Astrophysical Journal 

 and Physical Review are of the analytic type 

 developed by the National Research Council.^ 

 They aim to give a complete description and 

 adequate summary of the results reported in 

 each article. The replies to the question: 



6. Is the amount of information given, in 

 general, about enough, too little, or too much? 



about enough 79.8 per cent, of readers. 



too little • 6.7 per cent, of readers. 



too much 4.8 per cent, of readers. 



91.3 per cent, 

 ■tihese replies indicate thai the aJbstraofcs, aver- 

 aging from 5 to 6 per cent, of the articles, have 

 been of about the right length, and it is not 

 believed they could be made much shorter with- 

 out considerably decreasing their value. 



A distinctive feature of the abstracts is that 

 they contain italicized subtitles wnieh give 



3 Described in ' ' Scientific Abstracting ' ' re- 

 ferred to above. 



the various subjects involved more completely 

 and precisely than in general it is possible for 

 the author's titles to do. One purpose of these 

 subtitles is to enable a reader who is not inter- 

 ested in the subject indicated by the author's 

 title to determine by glancing through the sub- 

 titles whether something of interest to him has 

 not been incidentally included. Until readers 

 became accustomed to these subtitles, howe\rer, 

 it was to be expected that most readers would 

 consider them more of an annoyance than a 

 help; but the following replies sh<yw that a 

 surprising percentage of the readers have 

 already found the subtitles useful: 



7. Do you ever read the subtitles in the ab- 

 stracts first? 



sometimes 64.1 per cent, of readers. 



riever 17.5 per cent, of readers. 



81.6 per cent. 



S. Bo you ever find the subtitles of value as 

 an index of the abstract? 



sometiraes 63.0 per cent, of readers, 



never 12.7 per cent of readers. 



75.7 per cent. 



Since the subtitles also serve the purpose of 

 assisting in the compilation of a complete sub- 

 ject index and tend to insure more complete 

 abstracts, it is believed this feature should be 

 retained. Only three readers definitely objected 

 to the form of the analytic abstracts. 



It is the practice of both these journals to 

 submit all authors' abstracts to an abstract 

 editor to be revised or of necessary rewritten, 

 in conformity with the standards adopted. 

 WhUe a few authors have objected to having 

 their abstracts "robbed of individuality," a 

 number of readers specially called attention to 

 the importance of having the abstracts edited 

 so that a uniform standard might be main- 

 tained. It can safely be affirmed that since 

 most authors are inexperienced in writing ab- 

 stracts and also differ widely in their ideas of 

 the function of the abstract, authors' abstracts 

 if not thoroughly edited are sure to fall far 

 short of rendering the service which prelim- 

 inary abstracts should render, even if detailed 

 instructions are furnished. But after the 

 edited abstracts begin to appear regularlj', they 



