Talk:Physical Review A

Why a separate article?

It seems that this article repeats a lot of the info already present in Physical Review and a separate article does not really appear to be necessary or even warranted. --Crusio (talk) 14:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

"intended to be a reliable source for providing information which stays current with the stated field of interest, even as this area swiftly evolves"

Perhaps the best thing one can say about this phrase is that it is grammatically (probably) correct. Apart from that, it is meaningless. "intending to be a reliable source"? Right, as opposed to all journals that try to be an unreliable source? "for providing information"? A source can be a source of information, but a "source for providing information"? That's just blabla. "stays current with the stated field of interest"? Right, again, that sets them apart from all the journals that try not to stay current... "even as this area swiftly evolves"? Again, which journal would argue that it operates in a stagnant area? Sorry Steve, but I think that an "aims and scope" section should just tell the reader what a journal is covering. Whether thy do this more reliably than other journals, or doing a better job of staying current with the field, or whether this field is particularly fast evolving, should all be sourced by independent sources. In the absence of that, I think you should leave it out. Cheers, --Crusio (talk) 19:00, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

In reply - I see where your coming from. However, this is on this journal's homepage:

"Physical Review A "provides" a dependable resource of worldwide developments in the rapidly evolving area of atomic, molecular and optical physics and related fundamental concepts." So yes, it appears that a journal can be a resource, or source, for providing information, according to these words.

Therefore, first, I did not write these words, nor their intended meaning. So, it is not something that I made up to write in this article. Second, I have originally authored more than 20 journal articles. Added to this is a certain number more that I almost totally rewrote. With all of those articles this appears to be a notable statement, as related to this particular journal. Before you close your mind, read on...

So your blah blah blah is their words, not mine. Third, there must be a very good reason why the journal would have that in its summary. I think that would be to establish its function, and to perhaps distinguish itself. Not to mention the fact that this journal's reputation can support that statement already, whenever it was first written. Fourth, I wrote instead "...intending to be a reliable source". I did not explicitly claim that it IS a reliable source. To say that it IS a reliable source would be POV. Writing instead, this is the journal's intention appears to be neutral wording. And it expresses to the general reader audience what the journal's purpose is meant to be, according to the journal, not me.

I am not saying other journals do or don't make the same claim. I am saying this journal did, and can more than likely back it up.

Regarding another critism - My intention was to express that this journal stays current with rapid advancements in the field. I suppose I can alter my sentence to express this. But since I just finished writing this about 18 hours ago, I don't see any reason to jump on phrases such as this. Over a few days I imagine it would have been rewritten. If you are expecting a perfect article when it first gets posted - well that is not going to happen.

Anyway, I can imagine that there are journals that don't explicitly try to keep track of accelerated developments, or rapid evolutions in the field of interest. If a journal is not equipped to do so, how can it? (I already stated the field of interest in the introduction by the way, why repeat it?). ----Steve Quinn (talk) 02:49, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• Hi again Steve, I thought that it was quite universally known that promotional writing produces some of the worst English around... :-) Although I admit that we scientists come in a good second and are probably first in obfuscation... I think the whole problem is with the fact that you didn't write those words, but copied them from the journal website. The journal writing guide specifically warns against doing that. In order to be encyclopedic, it is not necessary to tell readers how a journal sees itself (unless that has been the subject of extensive coverage by third parties), but how others see the journal. Adding that it is the journal's "intention" does not really remove the problem, I think. I realized that you only wrote this recently and that it was still rough, which is why I tried to improve your text. Granted, that was done mostly by cutting stuff, but one of the first things I teach my students when they start writing their first paper is always that using fewer words generally results in clearer writing (and I have seen that somewhere in WP guides, too, I think it was called WP:Be brief or something like that). --Crusio (talk) 12:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• And see this, Ajax Waste Solutions as it sees itself and how it is described in WP... --Crusio (talk) 12:52, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

First, I hope you meant that I paraphrased and derived meaning from the journal website, not that I copied and pasted content. Second, I happened to read one other summary statement from another journal, and I have to admit this appears to be the "promotional" part that editors are warned about. Third, I am reading the material that you provided links for and the "promotional" also appears somewhat "vague". Also, (jarring my memory) keeping abreast of current research and advances in the field does seem to be a common theme amongst journals.

Fourth, I really like the example about discussing what is in the boxes of the warehouse in a Wikipedia article, thereby avoiding inappropriate vagueness and abstractions (buzzwords). Pretty good. Fifth, I will read other journal website summaries and notice how common this is (now). In any case, perhaps the vague and promotional content that you removed should be once again removed. My only caveat is, a general reader coming along may not know that this is a common theme amongst journals, and that probably many journals strive for it. Would this content have meaning for the general reader? ----Steve Quinn (talk) 14:48, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• Steve, I'm pretty busy at the moment and if in my haste I phrased my comments clumsily so that you thought I was accusing you of something inappropriate, I apologize, because that certainly was not what I intended to say and I don't want to harass a hard-working editor like you! As for common themes for journals, that should be in the common theme articles, I guess, otherwise we would have to copy such text in each and every single article. I usually link to either the article on academic journals or on scientific journals in the lead of a journal article (depending on the journal's subject matter) and something like this should be in those articles so that a general reader could find it there. It's similar like linking to peer review, without explaining in the article itself what this entails. No time to have a look at this issue myself right now, though. --Crusio (talk) 14:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for the apology, and it seems I knew what you meant in the first place, so no harm done there.

Regarding common themes: I was actually thinking the same thing regarding common themes - that "common theme articles" is the best place for these. Hopefully within the next few days I will be able to read the scientific journal article and the academic journal article. I will try to determine if content regarding this matter is already in these articles. If not I can write a paragraph or two on common themes in journals (or something like that), beginning with "...keeping abreast of current research, and advances in the field... ----Steve Quinn (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2010 (UTC)