Time for Reflection
Are your interests mirrored by our content? With one year behind us, we want to know what you like and what you don’t like about The Analytical Scientist
In her years as an au pair in the UK (before we met), my wife once received a precious gift from the lady of the house – a sign of her appreciation. It was a small but beautiful porcelain box, with the phrase “In here you see, what pleases me” inscribed on the lid. Intriguing words. When my wife opened the box she discovered that the bottom was made of mirrored glass, and so what she saw was a reflection of her own face. What a lovely and subtle way of telling someone that you are fond of them. My wife treasures that box to this day.
As editors of The Analytical Scientist, our goal is to offer you something approaching a “precious gift” each and every month. We aim to present a selection of articles that mirror your interests and make you pause for reflection. If we succeed in this goal, then we can legitimately consider ourselves to be a useful, and integral part of the analytical sciences community – which is not always the case for trade publications.
Over the course of 2013, we spoke with many readers of The Analytical Scientist at meetings. This generated a considerable amount of feedback, which helped us enormously in shaping the development of the publication. Our sense from these interactions is that the publication is on the right track.
Now, with a year’s worth of issues under our belt, it would be extremely valuable to take a deeper dive into readers’ reactions to the publication. And so we kindly request that you make your thoughts and wishes known in our online reader’s survey, at tas.txp.to/0114/survey.
The survey comprises fewer than 20 questions, with space at the end for you to add suggestions for specific articles (which you may or may not offer to write). It shouldn’t take more than five minutes to complete.
In return, we will publish a snapshot of the results in an upcoming issue and, to thank you for participating, we are offering a prize draw with a couple of intriguing prizes – click on the survey link to find out more.
Please help us by completing the survey – and ensure that every time you open The Analytical Scientist you’ll find content that interests, engages and pleases you.
Frank van Geel is owner of educational website Chromedia and Scientific Director of The Analytical Scientist. He studied analytical chemistry, specialized in mass spectrometry in the Netherlands and did several years of post-doc work in spectroscopy with Jim Winefordner at the University of Florida in the US. Then he became a science teacher and later publisher in chemistry and physics related topics. He developed numerous publications in chemistry and other sciences. He strongly supports the mission: Building online communities is the road to take. We need to strengthen the quality of analytical chemistry and we need to strengthen our community by sharing know-how and by sharing our opinions, visions and our views of the future of analytical science.
