The Universal Recipe or How to Get your Manuscript Accepted by Persnickety Editors

Abstract

A couple of years ago, AIPEA President Jiri Konta asked your editor to prepare a short article describing his concept of the "ideal" manuscript for publication in Clays and Clay Minerals. I begged off at first, believing that my limited experience in the editing field hardly qualified me to instruct eminent scientists how to write. I also believed that the "ideal" manuscript for Clays and Clay Minerals should be no less "ideal" nor no more "ideal" than a manuscript submitted to any other technical journal in clay science or, for that matter, in any field of science or technology. Never having refrained before from rushing in where "mortals fear to tread," I quickly dismissed my first qualm; however, I am still of the opinion that manuscripts submitted to Clays and Clay Minerals, except for the subject matter itself, should not be prepared differently from those destined for any other scientific journal. It is, therefore, with those thoughts in mind that the article published in AIPEA's 1989 Newsletter evolved. Because the subject matter of the AIPEA article is germane to members of our own Clay Minerals Society, many of whom may not individually belong to AIPEA, it is reprinted here in a slightly revised form. Hopefully, the following comments, ideas, hints, recommendations, and guidelines will indeed contribute to the preparation of better organized and more readable reports in clay science that truly do what all scientific communications are supposed to do--convey information and ideas to the reader in a succinct, unambiguous, tothe-point manner, unencumbered by flowery prose, complicated jargon, convoluted reasoning, or wild-eyed speculation.