Hi everyone,

This week the Nature Chemistry team have been thinking about how we display our wonderful papers (when we finally open the doors and eventually publish a paper, anyway).

We’d really like to see what everyone else thinks about some of the things we discussed after looking at what other journals have to offer.

So, the things we’re interested in:

(1) HTML vs PDF: does anyone read the HTML articles? Do you read the PDF on-screen or print it out?

(2) Big vs little graphics: what does everyone else think about the tiny size of the graphics in ACS html articles?

(3) Tagging/’semantic web’: what do you think about the toys on the RSC’s Project Prospect? What kind of things would you like to see tagged/linked to other content in Nature Chemistry? For instance, Steve would love to do something with named reactions.

(4) 3D molecular structures: do these help your understanding of a paper?

(5) How useful to you are InChIs and SMILES?

(6) Forward linking: the RSC and Elsevier/Science Direct offer this – do you use it? Would you use an RSS feed that alerted you to new citations of a particular paper.

(7) Would you actually comment on papers if there was a comments box at the end?

(8) We really like the Biochemical Society’s HTML article style (sample one here) – do you?

If we could get a deluge of posts about this one, we’d be overjoyed! And this is your chance to voice your opinion on what a Nature Chemistry paper should look like.

Neil

Neil Withers (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Neil Withers at 06:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Apologies for not posting in Journal journeys as much as I would have hoped - the one overwhelming feature of setting up a new journal is that it leaves very little time to blog...

I did want to take 10 minutes, however, to let you know that Nature Chemistry now has an editorial team - although it's not complete just yet (we're also looking for someone to be based in the Tokyo office). Brief editor bios (and their stunning headshots) can be found here on the new Nature Chemistry website. Each editor will also write their own Reactions piece in the coming weeks, so that you'll get to know them a little better - and perhaps I'll even get around to writing one myself sometime soon.

As part of the new website, we'll also be publishing three new research highlights each Friday*, covering what we think are important papers appearing in the literature. These will be freely available on the Nature Chemistry website (although you may have to register for a nature.com account to access them).

*The first batch go live - with the new website - on a Thursday, not a Friday, because as I have learned, never push a new product live on a Friday... it doesn't give you too much room for error before the weekend hits...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 06:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry it's been a while since the last JJ post - recruitment, portal and website issues have conspired to stop me from blogging about Nature Chemistry for a little while... but there are a few things I would like to mention:

1. Nature Chemistry is looking for another associate editor, to be based in Tokyo - here is an excerpt from the job ad:

As part of NPG's expanding publishing programme in chemistry we are now seeking an additional Associate Editor, to be based in our Tokyo office, to work on Nature Chemistry and a number of publishing projects based in the Asia-Pacific region.

2. Nature Chemistry now has a Facebook page. I'm sure that half of the Sceptical Chymist readers have just groaned and the other half have let out some little whoop of joy (I'm just guessing at 50:50, for all I know it could be 99:1). Anyhow, consider it an experiment of some kind - let's see where it goes... why not join and come along for the ride?

3. I will start the obligatory - "Is anyone in blogo-land going to the ACS meeting in New Orleans?" thread. I am, and a few other NPG-types are, and there's always the possibility of a blogger get-together of some sort...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm sure that some of you may have noticed that the signature to my Friday post on 'Reactions' finally had a link in it to Nature Chemistry.

This is the first incarnation of the Nature Chemistry website and just covers the basics at this point. It will be fleshed out with a lot more details in a couple of months' time, but at least you can now see the colour...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 04:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a journal cover worth?

Well, in 2007, when I was on a paper that was lucky enough to be featured on the inside cover of Angewandte Chemie, it was 1000 Euros (that's almost $1500). If our artwork had been judged to have been worthy for the real cover, i.e., the one on the outside, it would have cost 1800 Euros - I don't know how the prices have changed since then. It's a similar story at Chem. Commun. - one of my papers made it to the inside cover back in 2005, and I think a 'contribution' was made to the production costs - I don't recall how much that was.

There has been some debate on journal cover art - some journals do have it and some don't. Some charge for it and some don't. Most authors in my experience are quite eager to have their work featured on a journal cover - it's a big glossy colourful advert for their work - and occasionally they make for nice posters too!

When establishing a new journal, especially here at NPG, it's another part of the process that needs some careful thought. A 'pre-launch' cover can be used on sample issues and in marketing campaigns to raise awareness of the journal in the community - in this case, the cover is not only an advert for the work it depicts, but the journal itself.

The reason I bring this up is that we've just finalized our 'pre-launch' cover for Nature Chemistry. Just like the other Nature research journals, on the cover of each issue we will have artwork that is related to the content inside - usually one of the research papers. Obviously we have no inside content yet - and so we had to think of an image that says 'chemistry' - and be inclusive of as many of the sub-fields as possible... not easy, and unless you just slap a stereotypical periodic table or a cheesy line-up of glassware containing pretty coloured liquids on it, there's a bit of thought involved. And you also want something that is visually striking.

I think we've checked a lot of the boxes and have a very good cover - you'll start seeing it on the web and at some conferences in the near future (and I'll fill you in on the details of exactly what the image is and where it came from when it goes public...).

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 05:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Objective: To write an informative and perhaps somewhat humorous blog entry for the Sceptical Chymist about ‘Objective’ statements that appear at the top of CVs and resumes – without sounding like I’m ranting too much.

As I discussed last week, the habit of including on your CV the fact that you have a driving licence seems a little redundant for certain jobs – such as scientific editors. Sure, if you’re applying to become the next Lewis Hamilton, however, go right ahead, you may even want to put it near the top of your CV – and in bold.

Another observation I would now like to make is that, depending upon the circumstances of your job search, putting an objective statement at the top of your CV could be, for want of a better word, pointless.

First however, here are the situations in which an objective statement is a good and possibly useful feature: (1) you are posting your CV to an online careers site where it may be viewed by all manner of different potential employers, or (2) you are attending a career fair and handing out your CV to a number of different, but I assume related, companies. In these cases, having a generic objective statement that tells people what you are looking for is a good thing, i.e., something along the lines of, ‘...to obtain an R&D position in the pharmaceutical industry that...’.

Now, let’s consider the job applicant who is applying for a specific job – such as that of an associate editor at Nature Chemistry for example. I would assume that because the candidate is applying for that particular job, their objective would be, ‘to obtain a position as an associate editor of Nature Chemistry’. Now, if you ask me, putting that at the top of your CV is pointless, because I assume that if you didn’t want the job, you wouldn’t have applied. It could be argued that this enables the candidate to succinctly sum up their career aspirations – but I think the cover letter is the most appropriate place for that.

The other option is that an applicant sends in a standard CV that has an objective that is not even closely related to the job they’re applying for – such as mentioning something about R&D when applying for an editing job for example. This, to me at least, suggests a lack of attention to detail and hints that the application is somewhat speculative in nature.

So, the best you can hope for by including an objective statement on your CV when applying for a specific job, is that you’ve stated the obvious. The worst, is that the statement bears no relation to the job in question – which doesn’t look good.

In summary, I hope that my blog post meets with your approval and I will follow up with you in a couple of weeks to discuss it with you further.*

Yours sincerely

Stuart

*Every careers-related seminar I went to in the US told me to include a sentence like this at the end of my cover letter, but it just seems a little too earnest to me. If a company really wants to talk to you about your application, trust me, they’ll be in touch...

**I feel I should add a similar disclaimer to that I put in the driving licence post, in that no one will be denied — or indeed selected for — an interview for Nature Chemistry based on whether an objective statement was included on their CV or not.

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 06:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Recruitment for the associate editor positions at Nature Chemistry continues, and although I obviously can’t comment on specifics here, there are some general observations I want to share with you.

No interviews have been scheduled yet, but I want you to imagine a hypothetical scene in which a candidate is sitting across a desk from me and one of my colleagues in the Nature offices in London. We’re about half-way through the interview and the questions continue...

----------

Me: So, if you wouldn’t mind, could you briefly summarize your thoughts on this manuscript for us.

Candidate: I beg your pardon.

----------

Let me just point out now, that exchanges of this kind will not feature in the interviews. No one will be asked about their driving skills or associated knowledge. And I can guarantee this in spite of the fact that most of the people in the UK (including some, but not all of the Nature Chemistry candidates), proudly include on their CVs that they have a driving licence.

To be fair, I used to put this invaluable nugget of information on my CV as well, until one day I suddenly realized that it really wasn’t all that important for the jobs I was applying for... i.e., if you can analyze the ins-and-outs of an asymmetric synthesis paper, I don’t really care if you can do a three-point-turn or not.

I think it’s just a hangover from what we were all told at school – I think that’s where I picked up the habit. Sure, it does no harm (and no one will be denied — or indeed selected for — an interview for Nature Chemistry based on whether this was included on their CV or not), but unless it is directly relevant to the job, I don’t see the point.

Please note, however, that I am not a recruitment specialist or hiring manager (or whatever you call those people) and perhaps I am missing something important – so I’m not offering professional advice here, leave this piece of information off your CV at your own peril. (Perhaps that was why the Royal Society of Chemistry turned me down?).

I don’t remember seeing driving qualifications on any of the non-UK CVs, but that’s not to say they don’t have their own problems. If I get a minute away from websites, podcasts, hiring and Nature Nanotechnology manuscripts, I’ll be back to tell you about them...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 04:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

This will be brief, but it's Day 1, and I couldn't let it pass without a quick post...

The deadline for applications for the associate editor positions has now passed - and there's an awful lot of paper strewn around my desk... and the floor around it... now, time to shortlist and get the right mix of expertise in the right locations.

Here's a challenge for you - imagine you're setting up a general chemistry journal and you have a total editorial team of four - how do you break down the areas of expertise? Along traditional lines, or something different? Anyway - now I have a data set to work with, I'll be trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Consider this a post for pedants, perhaps.

Here we are with a new journal on the horizon, Nature Chemistry, so one question we must ask ourselves is this - what do we abbreviate it to? Simple, huh? Surely it should be 'Nat. Chem.'? But wait, what about 'Nature Chem.'?

Well, let's start by looking at other NPG titles. Some of those based in London, such as Nature Materials (Nature Mater.), Nature Physics (Nature Phys.) and Nature Nanotechnology (Nature Nanotech.), all use the full 'Nature' bit, but Nature Protocols (Nat. Protoc.) does not! Let's cross the Atlantic to journals based in the States, such as Nature Chemical Biology (Nat. Chem. Biol.) and Nature Biotechnology (Nat. Biotechnol.) and you'll see that they use the 'Nat' form as well... Is your head spinning yet?

Also, notice the difference in abbreviation between Nature Nanotech. and Nat. Biotechnol. - whereas 'Nanotechnology' is shortened to 'Nanotech.', 'Biotechnology' is trimmed - albeit only slightly! - to 'Biotechnol.'... The copy-editing powers-that-be tell me that the word 'Technology' should be abbreviated as 'Technol.', because the word 'Technical' would be indicated by the shortened form 'Tech.' - still with me?

So, 'Nature Nanotech.' breaks all the rules... and it means we often see ourselves cited as 'Nat. Nanotechnol.', or 'Nat. Nanotech.' or 'Nature Nanotechnol.' - all of which are, technically, wrong.

Now, let's get started on other journals. Here at NPG, we abbreviate Angewandte Chemie to Angew. Chem. Int. Edn (assuming we're not talking about papers published before 1998, which still include the 'Engl.' bit...). This generally causes our more chemistry-oriented authors to correct their proofs by scoring through the 'n' of 'Edn' and telling us that it should be 'Ed.' not 'Edn'. I agree with the authors, but I am told that we shorten 'Edition' to 'Edn' because 'Ed.' means 'Editor'... anybody out there still reading?

My response to this argument is that we're citing the name of a journal, not just a random collection of words, so we should use 'Ed.', but we don't. At least we're not alone in getting it wrong, ACS journals insist on putting a comma after the 'Angew. Chem.' bit..! Note in all of this, that there is no full-stop at the end of 'Edn' - that's because 'n' is the last letter of 'Edition' and so we don't need one. This, of course, creates confusion as well, because most people out there cite things like PNAS as 'Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA' with a full-stop after 'Natl'. Of course, we don't... we go with 'Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA' because 'l' is the last letter of... OK, you get it. No matter, authors still correct that one on their proofs too... (PNAS itself doesn't even use full-stops...).

If you've made it this far - congratulations. I think we're going with 'Nature Chem.' - but it won't really matter as I'm guessing that ISI will index it as 'Nat.' Chem.' anyway... they abbreviate Nature Nanotechnology to 'Nat. Nanotechnol.'...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 06:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Back in my undergraduate days at the University of Birmingham (the one in England), I had a particularly entertaining set of lectures on aromatic chemistry from Jim Burdon. I don't know how he got on to the subject, but during one of the lectures he told us that neutrons were purple, and then went on to discuss the colour of electrons. Now, that's obviously incredibly silly... we all know that neutrons are a funny green-brown colour (and that electrons are blue).

As we start to put the nuts and bolts of Nature Chemistry in place, we need to make important decisions about colour... what do I mean by that? Well, go and have a look at the Nature Materials homepage - see the red in the banner at the top of the page and in the section headers - that is known in these parts as 'Materials red'. If you pick up a copy of the print issue, you will see the same red used throughout the journal, particularly as the font colour for titles, headlines and figure captions.

In the same vein, you will see that Nature Geoscience is green (British racing green in fact). Nature Photonics is blue, Nature Physics is blue/purple. Nature Chemical Biology is yet another different shade of blue... Now go to Nature Nanotechnology - that's a gold-ish colour. In print, however, we use a red (not 'Materials red', but, you've guessed it, 'Nano red') because gold doesn't really work well for text.

So, along comes Nature Chemistry and it needs its own colour - preferably a consistent one that works for both print and online content. We're already experimenting with shades of a particular colour here - but I'm not going to tell you which one yet... I want to know what colour you think chemistry is?

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 05:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, what's that title all about then..?

As you may have seen from Josh's post not so long ago, I have accepted the position of chief editor of Nature Chemistry. Other than a name, however, there's little else to the journal at the moment, but things are moving - fast. You may notice that there is no link yet for 'Nature Chemistry' in this sentence or the previous one. That won't be the case for long - the first incarnation of a website should be up and running soon.

So, what is 'Journal journeys' then? Think of it as a diary of how 'Nature Chemistry' is taking shape. It won't necessarily be a day-by-day account of what's going on - that may well be a little dull... and there will almost certainly not always be time each and every day to tell you what's happening. And obviously there will be some things I can't tell you, but I will share with you as much as I can of what I think might be interesting.

So, why 'Day -11'? Well, I officially begin on February 1st, and so there are 11 days to go... in the meantime, rather than sunning myself on a beach, I'm still dealing with my Nature Nanotechnology responsibilities - and will continue to handle manuscripts for the next few months. Watch out for the Feb issue by the way, it will have a lot of chemistry content.

And finally, 'Deadline day' - how about that? Well, the deadline for applications for associate editor positions on Nature Chemistry closes on January 31st - see here. I want to offer a few words of advice (rather than an exhaustive list) to any of you out there who plan to apply - these should be fairly obvious - but they're important.

1. If applying for any job, but especially as an editor of some description, make sure there are no spelling mistakes in your application - get someone to read through your cover letter, CV, and any other materials you are requested to submit (see 2!).

2. Read the job advert carefully - and make sure you do everything it asks you to. I copy in the requirements for the Nature Chemistry positions below:

Applicants should send a CV (including their class of degree and a brief account of their research and other relevant experience), a News & View style piece (no more than 500 words) on a recent paper from the chemical literature, and a brief cover letter explaining their interest in the post, salary expectations, and indicating whether they wish to be considered for a position in London, Boston or Tokyo.

So, I look forward to our personnel department forwarding a flood of (complete, spelling mistake-free) applications to me once the deadline passes...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)