I had to face this recently when I published an article on my research in
a journal far afield from my usual haunts. I study the structure of
scholarly literatures using citation data and generally publish the results
in information science journals where the majority of the readers are familiar
with the jargon of bibliometrics (quantitative analyses of literatures) and
with the methods of analysis. I gave a paper on the literature of fisheries
& aquatic sciences at the American Fisheries Society conference and was
invited to publish an extended version in the society journal _Fisheries_.
It took the efforts of two reviewers and the editor as well as myself to
not only "de-jargonize" the text but also to develop examples that explained
the basic principles of journal cocitation mapping (the technique I use)
for the readers--who were basic and applied fisheries people--very
knowledgeable in biology but not in bibliometrics. It was an excellent
learning experience for me, I can assure you, and the article serves me now
as an example for my Phd students in some techniques of explication for
"outside readers."
Kate McCain
Professor
College of Information Science & Technology
Drexel University
mccainkw at duvm.ocs.drexel.edu
