Abstract
EACH of our two leading medical contemporaries- the British Medical Journal and the Lancet-includes in the issues of January 2 some helpful suggestions to writers of scientific papers upon styles of composition and typographical conventions. The British Medical Journal is given a much more attractive appearance than it has had hitherto by the use of a cover of grey paper with a scarlet design upon it, and the type of the journal has been entirely changed, being now that created a few years ago for the printing of The Times. This type is more legible than that formerly used and is particularly suitable for comfortable reading. The British Medical Journal announces in the same issue that, in future, the Harvard system of references to scientific literature will be used, instead of numbered references, such as are used in NATURE. Examples are given of these two systems of references to papers. The Lancet publishes a special supplement containing advice to authors on the preparation of scientific papers, words and phrases to avoid, summaries, abbreviations, references, and related matters. If these instructions were followed generally, the work of editors would be greatly relieved.
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Composition of Scientific Papers. Nature 139, 64 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139064a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139064a0