Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Dec 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011bphsm...4...69u&link_type=abstract
Belgian Physical Society Magazine, Vol. 4, p. 69-70
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific Writing, Scientific Practice
Scientific paper
EDP Sciences, Les Ulis, France. Part 1 : 162 pp. € 35 ISBN 978-2-7598-0506-8 Part 2 : 298 pp. € 60 ISBN 978-2-7598-0639-3
The journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) and EDP Sciences decided in 2007 to organize a School on the various aspects of scientific writing and publishing. In 2008 and 2009 Scientific Writing for Young Astronomers (SWYA) Schools were held in Blankenberge (B) under the direction of Christiaan Sterken (FWO-VUB). These two books (EAS publication series, Vol. 49 and 50) reflect the outcome of these Schools.
Part 1 contains a set of contributions that discuss various aspects of scientific publication; it includes A&A Editors' view of the peer review and publishing process. A very interesting short paper by S.R. Pottasch (Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Groningen, and one of the two first Editors-in Chief of A&A) deals with the history of the creation of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Two papers by J. Adams et al. (Observatoire de Paris) discuss language editing, including a detailed guide for any non-native user of the English language. In 2002 the Board of Directors decided that all articles in A&A must be written in clear and correct English.
Part 2 consists of three very extensive and elaborated papers by Christiaan Sterken, supplying guidelines to PhD students and postdoctoral fellows to help them compose scientific papers for different forums (journals, proceedings, thesis, etc.). This part is of interest not only for young astronomers but it is very useful for scholars of all ages and disciplines.
Paper I "The writing process" (60 pp.) copes with the preparation of manuscripts, with communicating with editors and referees and with avoiding common errors. Delicate problems on authorship, refereeing, revising multi-authored papers etc. are treated in 26 FAQ's.
Paper II "Communication by graphics" (120 pp.) is entirely dedicated to the important topic of communication with images, graphs, diagrams, tables etc. Design types of graphs (scatter and vector plots, line graphs, histograms, pie charts, 3D surface plots) and elements of graphical images are explicated, as well as the major components of graphical images (axes, legends, textual parts, etc.).
A lot of practical information on file formats, typesetting units of length (pixels, points and picas) is given in tables and figures. The problems of resolution and the differences between ppi, dpi and lpi concepts are clearly explained in par. 8, followed by a very thorough paragraph on The complexities of handling color. The author formulates the basic principle of color graphic design as follows (p. 125): DESIGN IN BLACK AND WHITE - ADD COLOR WHEN THE DESIGN IS COMPLETE. In this paper all figures are in black and white but selected graphics are printed in color (16 pp.) at the end of the paper.
Different aspects of image quality are illustrated with a detail of the beautiful cover illustration of the book, the tapestry Astronomie (Rösska Museum, Sweden). Paper II ends with a list of "What to avoid at all prices" and a summary of things to do before submitting your paper to a journal. Paper III "Ethical aspects" (100 pp.) has as main theme the truthful communication of scientific results. Therefore, concepts of truth, error, quality and value are elaborated, followed by paragraphs on bibliometry and bibliometrics (impact factor, half-life, citation index and the recent Hirch h-index). Various forms of scientific misconduct are discussed extensively by category: misconduct of the researcher, the author, the referee(s), the publisher etc.
The epilog "the road to wisdom" deals with truth and beauty in science with quotes of Dirac, Heisenberg and Chandrasekhar.
The books are full of very useful information on all aspects of scientific writing, very complete and very well illustrated. Hundreds of references are given at the end of each paper and in the abundant footnotes a lot of interesting extra information is presented. The layout, the printing and the illustrations are excellent, as can expected in a publication about scientific writing. Just one small remark: the overflow to the next page of some extensive footnotes (mostly in Part 1) is sometimes a little bit annoying.
All treated subjects are amply illustrated by examples, sometimes from the wide personal experience of the editor Christiaan Sterken, but often out of very interesting controversial historical cases (e.g. Millikan, Rømer, Young). This large assortment of famous historical cases makes the reading of the books compelling for readers with interest in the history of sciences. The comprehensive name index at the end of each volume consequently contains entries ranging from Archimedes to Newton, Einstein and Umberto Eco.
As mentioned earlier this publication is very useful not only for young astronomers but for authors of all ages and disciplines. The books are so complete and elaborated that continuous reading is not obvious; browsing to specific points of interest is more suitable.
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