  ve received numerous letters from readers of the Translation Journal, telling me how wonderful this publication is and how much it has helped them in their professional careers. My response to these letters is that they are directed to the wrong address. The editor's control over the contents of the Journal is limited to refusing publication of papers that for some reason do not belong here and soliciting contributions from those colleagues of whose expertise in a certain field I happen to be aware.
However, the great majority of articles you read in the Translation Journal are submitted spontaneously by people I never met personally or heard about before they contacted me. They receive no fee for their efforts, and some academic institutions still refuse to consider a paper published by an on-line journal on a par with a printed publication for purposes of academic credit.
While all contributors to the Translation Journal deserve our gratitude, we owe special thanks to those who have committed themselves to a regular column: Cathy Flick, whose "Web Surfing for Fun and Profit" pages have grown from the very first issue of the Journal by steady additions to become a treasure trove of sites of interest to translators; Fire Ant (Chris Durban) and Worker Bee (Eugene Seidel), whose thoughtful and witty questions and answers column has drawn praises from both beginners and seasoned professionals, and Chester Claff, whose Organic Nomenclature series helped us navigate through the treacherous waters of organic chemistry for 27 issues, including seven installments in the late Sci-Tech Translation Journal.
So if you've learned something useful from an article published in this Journal, please contact its author and express your appreciation for his or her work. Of course, your comments, addressed to the editor, about specific articles may also appear in the Letters to the Editor page regardless of whether or not you agree with the author. The author's e-mail address is provided so that the author-reader relationship may become a two-way street. Take advantage of the way the electronic medium facilitates this two-way communication. If you wish to include the editor in this communication, fine—I'm always interested in your opinion and I'll be glad to answer your questions. But don't forget that the key to the success of this publication is the author and the author-reader relationship.
May all readers and contributors of the Translation Journal enjoy a happy, prosperous, and peaceful New Year! |
