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of the discourse in the world of letters. Jim Cox inthe foreword writes, “the obligation of bookreviewers [is] to encourage . writers to writebetter, publishers to publish more effectively, andreaders to read with greater satisfaction” (p. iv).

Ideally, reviewing is part of an oeuvre. Byoeuvre, I do not just mean a body of work. I meana body that is moving, stealthily and wittily, witheyes that see and ears that hear, and, crucially, ison a mission. Peter Schjeldahl in The New Yorkercuts through intellectual (and anti-intellectual)anxieties to make the dazzling case that whata work of art is, what it does, and what it meansare proper constituents of the artistic experience,and the critic’s job is to move between thesedomains, and that is just what he does. JoanAcocella, also usually in The New Yorker, accom-plishes mission impossible: she puts dance intowords, week after week.

The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing does haveuseful advice on formatting your review, how tohandle an irate author (p. 102), and whether it isokay to sell a review copy of a book you’vereviewed (they are very ethical and careful intheir analysis [p. 89–92], although I found it hardnot to feel that their answer is a resounding“yes”). The best advice for any potentialreviewers is to figure out how the review willaugment your oeuvre, propel your mission, andmake the case that you have a place in the dia-logue with something to say.

Schuyler W. Henderson, M.D., M.P.H.Bellevue Hospital

New York UniversityNew York

Schuyler.Henderson@bellevue.nychhc.orghttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2013.08.015

REFERENCES1. McGinn C. Letters. New York Review of Books. 2013;60(9):52.2. Mailer N. A transit to narcissus. New York Review of Books. May

17, 1973.3. Poole S. Dan Brown’s Inferno: a tall writer offers his historic review.

The Guardian. May 14, 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/14/dan-brown-inferno-first-look. Accessed June 7, 2013.

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The Scholarly Kitchen:What's Hot and Cookingin Scholarly Publishing.By the Society for ScholarlyPublishing. http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/.

AL OF THE AMERICAN ACAD

VOLUME 5

or authors interested in getting their work

published, a first question might be, “What F does a publisher do?” A short answer is,

“All things an author cannot do or requireshelp in doing,” such as provide a mechanism forindependent peer review, professionally prepareand broadly distribute the work, and ensure itspermanent place within the literature.

Publishing is evolving at an ever-acceleratingrate to keep up with reader demands for infor-mation when they want it (now), where theywant it (increasingly on smaller personaldevices), and how they want it (free). So ques-tions faced by scientific publishers delve deeper:continue print or go online only? What isthe Faculty of 1000? Does the H Index trump theImpact Factor? Green or Gold?

To help publishers answer these and otherquestions, the Society for Scholarly Publishing(SSP) came into being. Formed in the late 1970s, theSSP is an organization that fosters communicationamong the major stakeholders in publishing (i.e.,those who produce and those who procure).

As the need for more immediate disseminationof information intensified in the digital age,the SSP established The Scholarly Kitchen inFebruary 2008, a blog that, according to its Aboutpage in the section Why We Exist, had as itsintent to:

1. keep SSP members and interested partiesaware of new developments in publishing

2. point to research reports and projects3. interpret the significance of relevant research

in a balanced way (or occasionally in a provoc-ative way)

4. suggest areas that need more input by identi-fying gaps in knowledge

5. translate findings from related endeavors(publishing outside STM, online business, usertrends)

6. attract the community of STM informationexperts interested in these things and givethem a place to contribute

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2 NUMBER 11 NOVEMBER 2013

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Note: The acronym STM is an industry termdenoting those who publish in the science, tech-nology, and medical fields.

The main “cooks” of the Scholarly Kitchen areKent Anderson, CEO/publisher for the Journalof Bone and Joint Surgery, and David Crotty,senior editor with Oxford University Press’journal publishing program. They are joined bya rotating cast of sous chefs posting on issuesof access, subscriptions, content delivery models,research, and industry trends.

A new posting arrives in our inboxes eachmorning, and I can attest that many discussionsthat start in the Scholarly Kitchen continue inour conference rooms later that day.

The blog of late has been a hotbed of reasoneddiscourse regarding public access to publishedresearch. The seemingly oxymoronic descriptive isintentional. The concept of open access (to whichthe “Green or Gold?” question above refers, thecolors representing availability options) has bois-terous advocates shouting fromdeeply entrenchedpositions, but heated arguments cool off whenthey are coming out of the Scholarly Kitchen,giving way to rational discussion.

In addition, Friday’s editions often featurelighter fare, a welcome respite of videos, musings,or forwarded items of humorous interest.

What is true of political campaigning is trueof publishing: whether seeking a vote or to bepublished, the best way to get to know what’simportant to those whose favor you seek is tospend some time in their kitchen. I won’t belaborthe kitchen metaphor by continuing to call con-tributors “cooks.” I think it is more accurate todescribe them as caretakers of the scientific litera-ture, because all are committed to publishing, pro-moting, and protecting the advances reported outof research studies, as is the blog’s avid readership.

Michael D. RoyAmerican Journal of Psychiatry

Journals for American Psychiatric Publishingmroy@psych.org

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2013.08.016

The views expressed in this review are the author’s own and do notrepresent those of the American Journal of Psychiatry, American

Psychiatric Publishing, or the American Psychiatric Association.

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATR

VOLUME 52 NUMBER 11 NOVEMBER 2013

What Editors Want: AnAuthor's Guide toScientific JournalPublishing. By Philippa J.Benson and Susan C. Silver.Chicago: University of ChicagoPress; 2012.

Y

oing science involves an extraordinarilyheterogeneous, complex, and evolving

D range of techniques, but almost all science

remains hitched to a common literary form: thepeer-reviewed article. Like any literary genre,the peer-reviewed scientific article is an accumu-lation of peculiarities, some corresponding clearlyto functional demands, others seemingly arbitraryor vestigial. One might predict that as a materialbasis for so much in the modern world—technicalprogress in the natural sciences, patents andapprovals, grants and salaries, etc.—this formand its mastery would fill as many universitycourse catalogs and instructional guides as formssuch as the novel or poem. However, most of uswho write for journals such as the Journal relyalmost exclusively on the guidance of informalnetworks of peers and supervisors, supplementedby brief author instructions from a particularjournal, and our experiences as readers.

What Editors Want joins a small library ofintroductory guides—some venerable, like theseventh edition of How to Write and Publisha Scientific Paper—that offer hand-holding toauthors and provide a snapshot of modern scien-tific publishing. Unlike some of these guides,What Editors Want forgoes detailed discussion ofthe conduct of science and crafting scientificprose. Instead, the book anticipates and closelysupervises the various decisions an author mustmake shepherding a completed project into print.

I found no revelations in What Editors Wantexcept one: I was pretty clueless when preparingmy first manuscript and would have been disas-trously inept if not for kind and generoussupervisors. What Editors Want would have hel-ped me then, and it may well be what many firstauthors want. The volume is slim, and thesections take about as much time to get throughas I would have willingly given before becom-ing restless. It is helpful enough to have a

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