Great science is not easily recognized without good writing skills. In view of this, we have decided to introduce a new prerequisite for the consideration of manuscripts at Nature Chemistry: Authors are requested to include a short poem highlighting the novel conclusions of their work. (Special consideration will be given to those who prepare their entire manuscript in iambic pentameter.)
This new submission requirement will be in effect from the date of this blog post.
Steve
Stephen Davey (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)
Report this comment
An elementary requirement
For work as great as mine
I know you’ll like my paper
About water into wine.
So how about a highlight
Right above the fold
And a twenty page article
For all my words of gold?
Report this comment
Spotter’s badge to Stu for this one, but have you seen the J. Org. Chem. paper that’s written in verse (J. Org. Chem. 36, 184–186 (1971) DOI: 10.1021/jo00800a036)?!
The (prosaic) title is “Comparative mobility of halogens in reactions of dihalobenzenes with potassium amide in ammonia”, but it begins
Reactions of potassium amide
With halobenzenes in ammonia
Via benzyne intermediates occur[3,4].
And of course published poet Roald Hoffmann (who also happens to be a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) had the following table of contents abstract for a review in Angewandte Chemie (DOI: 10.1002/anie.200900373; contents here.):
If, to ammonia one adds a metal,
The solution grows real unsettled.
A fine blue color is seen throughout
First by Humphry Davy, no doubt.
From lithium, electrons are released
The density of the solution decreased!
Soaked electrons are born, spins pair
Until a real band forms, debonaire!
Lowering the T of this ebullition
Impels a liquid-liquid partition,
Superconductivity? Why not?
Molecular orbitals hit the spot.
From blue to gold, the story unfolds.