Page 145 - How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 8th Edition 8th Edition

Page 158
8 222 254 286 316 348 46

12 280 320 362 386 446 60
16 338 390 442 494 546 74
20 394 456 520 582 644 88

Page 160

How to Use Reprints

As for using reprints, you may let your imagination and vanity be your guide. Start by sending one to your mother
because that is easier than writing the letter that you should have written long ago. If it is really a good paper, send a
reprint to anybody you want to impress, especially any senior colleagues who may some day be in a position to put in
a good word for you.

Your main consideration is whether or not to play the "postcard" game. Some scientists refuse to play the game, using
instead a distribution list which they believe will get the reprints to colleagues who might really need the reprints.
Routine postcards or form letters requesting reprints are ignored, although almost everyone would respond favorably
to a personal letter.

Yet, although many scientists resent the time and expense of playing the postcard game, most of them play it anyway.
And, vanity aside, the game may occasionally be worth the reprint. If so, the reasons may be somewhat as follows.

The largest number of reprint requests will come from people who can best be defined as "collectors." They tend to be
"library" scientists, possibly graduate students or postdoctoral fellows, who are likely to have a wide interest in the
literature and perhaps considerably less interest in laboratory manipulation. You probably won't recognize the names,
even if you can read the signatures at the bottoms of the cards, because these individuals probably have not published
in your field (if they have published at all). In time, you may begin to recognize some of the names, because the real
collector collects with dogged determination. Every time you publish, you are likely to receive reprint requests from
the same band of collectors working your particular subject area.
If you can recognize the collector, should you respond? Probably. There is, I think, room in science for the
multidisciplinary types who spend hours in the library, constantly collecting, organizing, and synthesizing broad areas
of the literature. Such broad-based people may not be at the forefront of research science, but often they become good
teachers or good administrators; and, in the meantime, they are very likely to produce one or more superb review
papers or monographs, often on a cosmic subject that only a collector would know how to tackle.

The next largest group of reprint requests is likely to come from foreign countries or from very small institutions.
Quite obviously, these

Page 161
people have seen your paper listed in one of the indexing or abstracting services, but have not seen the paper itself
because the journal is not available within their institution. (Expect a surge in requests within days after your paper is
listed in Current Contents.) Should you respond to such requests? Frankly, if you send out reprints at all, I think that
this group merits first consideration.

The third group of requests will come from your peers, people you know or names or laboratories that you recognize

file:///C|/...0208%20Books%20(part%201%20of%203)/How%20to%20write%20&%20publish%20scientific%20paper/24.htm[4/27/2009 1:17:06 PM]