| "Ian White, G3SEK" wrote:
|
| ...
| The difference is that an academic journal
| ...
| can publish material
| ...
| provided only that
| it's original and of high academic merit.
| ...
|

Dear Mr. Ian White,

This is an interesting point of view indeed,
which the last days
returns from time to time in my mind
so that I decided finally to ask you,
about it:

Is it a formal professional opinion,
or a deeper amateur hope of you?

Sincerely,

pez
SV7BAX

"Ian White, G3SEK" wrote in message ...
| Peter O. Brackett wrote:
|
| I would be willing to write such an article for QEX, however... not
| without an invitation to do so. An unsolicted contribution would be a
| lot of work on the part of anyone who undertook such a project and it
| might all be for naught.
|
| Personally I wouldn't do so without a clear indication from the editor
| that such an article could be published. This is simply because time
| is valuable and the fear that an unsolicited manuscript might be be
| rejected simply because, although interesting, it would be of little
| interest to the amateur radio community.
|
| Looking at this from a writer and an editor's point of view (though
| obviously not speaking for the editor of QEX)...
|
| First of all, QEX is not an academic journal but a technical magazine.
| The difference is that an academic journal has a guaranteed income from
| college libraries, and thus can publish material that is stunningly
| boring, provided only that it's original and of high academic merit.
|
| QEX on the other hand has to earn its living by publishing articles that
| are *interesting* and *useful* to subscribers. Every single issue will
| determine whether a substantial fraction of subscribers decide to renew,
| or not. This cold commercial fact tends to concentrate the editor's mind
| - and it also improves the quality of articles that he or she chooses to
| publish.
|
| Editors don't like giving open-ended invitations to writers whose work
| they don't already know. On the other hand, they love receiving e-mails
| asking if they'd consider an article on a certain subject. The more
| professional you are about this, by justifying why that article would be
| interesting, outlining the topics you'd like to cover, showing that you
| understand the needs of the magazine, and estimating an overall length
| that's appropriate to both the topic and the magazine... why, the more
| they'll like you.
|
| Oh, by the way, that e-mail will also be read as a sample of your
| writing style...
|
| But even then, no editor will say "Go ahead - you write it, we'll
| publish it." No self-respecting editor ever *should* say that! The best
| any author can legitimately expect is an enthusiastic promise to
| "consider it". It's then up to you to write an article that the editor
| cannot refuse.
|
| I can however provide professional technical references to anyone who
| might have a sincere interest in learning about such things.
|
| Very few people - even in this learned newsgroup - would be interested
| in learning about the subject for its own academic sake. But enough
| people have become intrigued by the topic of complex Zo to feel the
| foundations of our understanding(?) of transmission lines shifting
| underneath us. We now need to know which of the formulae and
| relationships that we've been using are universally correct, and which
| of them are actually only approximations. An article with that focus
| really *would* be interesting!
|
| An article really is needed now. Sorry, Walt, we can't go back to sleep
| - the genie is out of the bottle, and only more understanding (not less)
| will put it back. Reg's program is not the solution either. I'd trust
| that particular program all the way, but I also want to understand
| *why*, and using a program won't show me that.
|
| What's needed here is more like an academic review article. Such
| articles don't normally contain new, original results. The originality
| of a good review consists in pulling together existing results from a
| whole field of study and *explaining* what they mean.
|
| Reviews generally shouldn't go into the same heavy detail as the
| original references. For this particular topic, the mathematical level
| of a magazine article would be a make-or-break issue... and another very
| good reason why editors always say "Show me first." Academic papers tend
| to deal in high-level general concepts that are already familiar to
| academic readers, but that is not appropriate for an amateur readership.
| To emphasize the difference, it's not that amateur readers are stupid
| (far from it!) but that very few of us have covered this particular
| academic territory. As an author, don't take us into there unless
| there's absolutely no other way. If the same results can be obtained
| using lower-level concepts such as Ohm's and Kirchhoff's laws, then -
| for this readership - that's how it should be done.
|
| The existence of academic papers would allow you to skip over some of
| the heavy math, and keep your article interesting and moving forward.
| For example, it's legitimate in an article of this kind to work with a
| simplified example of a complex-Zo problem, derive a useful result, and
| quote a reference that proves (at the expense of much heavier math) that
| that result is actually a general one. A review-type article is one of
| the few cases where the notorious "it can be shown that" is actually a
| legitimate and useful tool to keep your story moving.
|
|
|
| --
| 73 from Ian G3SEK 'In Practice' columnist for RadCom (RSGB)
| Editor, 'The VHF/UHF DX Book'
| http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek