Describes a USDA bulletin in which the scientist(s) didn't write it, but rather a writer who "obtained material from many specialists, and worked it into a synthesis for a particular purpose."
Brief summary of a talk by T. Swann Harding, editor of scientific publications, U.S. Department of Agriculture, at 1931 AAACE convention, Corvallis, Oregon. American Association of Agricultural College Editors.
"Good technical editors can go far these days towards actually protecting the job of the scientist and defending the cause of worthwhile scientific research. Let them rise to the occasion."
Feels that experiment station literature is losing ground in the scientific world. "..scientists generally are not looking to the experiment station bulletin for important contributions to science." Suggests that the station editor can help maintain high scientific standards, as well as high editorial standards. "Briefly, then, believing that the chief function of an experiment station is to experiment and that the chief purpose of its publications is to describe the experiments and announce the results rather than to persuade people to adopt new and supposedly better practices, we are striving to raise the standards of our technical publications addressed to the scientist, whether he is primarily interested in agricultural research or not, and to make the publications addressed to our farmers technically sound and practically worth while."
"We have an ample supply of investigators, but there is a shortage of readable and responsible interpreters, men who can effectively play mediator between specialist and layman."
"The agricultural college editors stand at a very strategic point in the field of agricultural leadership. Through them the productive research of our laboratories may become articulate. As interpreters, they are liaison officers between the scientist and the farmer. The future of agriculture depends largely upon the quality of this interpretative process."
Reports results of a national survey among experiment station editors about their present information organization and their suggestions about how they would like their present setup changed for more efficient operation. Seventy-eight percent cast their vote for a coordinated setup (involving agricultural research, extension and possibly resident instruction). Fifty-four percent of respondents operated currently in a coordinated setup and like it; 24 percent operated in a decentralized arrangement but wanted to change.
