SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS.  Almost every science and every art has its own special periodicals, from which can be gleaned a large number of subjects and much valuable material that needs only to be popularized to be made attractive to the average reader.  The printed proceedings of scientific and technical societies, including the papers read at their meetings, as well as monographs and books, are also valuable.  How such publications may be utilized is illustrated by the articles given below.

The report of a special committee of an association of electrical engineers, given at its convention in Philadelphia, furnished a writer with material for an article on “Farming by Electricity,” that was published in the Sunday edition of the Springfield Republican.

Studies of the cause of hunger, made by Prof.  A.J.  Carlson of the University of Chicago and published in a volume entitled “The Control of Hunger in Health and Disease,” furnished the subject for an article in the Illustrated World. Earlier results of the same investigation were given in the Sunday magazine of one of the Chicago papers.

From the Journal of Heredity was gleaned material for an article entitled “What Chance Has the Poor Child?” It was printed in Every Week.

“Golfer’s Foot, One of Our Newest Diseases,” was the subject of a special feature in the New York Times, that was based on an article in the Medical Record.

That the canals on Mars may be only an optical illusion was demonstrated in an article in the Sunday magazine of the New York Times, by means of material obtained from a report of the section for the Observation of Mars, a division of the British Astronomical Association.

ANTICIPATING TIMELY SUBJECTS.  By looking forward for weeks or even months, as editors of Sunday newspapers and of magazines are constantly doing, a writer can select subjects and gather material for articles that will be particularly appropriate at a given time.  Holidays, seasonal events, and anniversaries may thus be anticipated, and special articles may be sent to editors some time in advance of the occasion that makes them timely.  Not infrequently it is desirable to begin collecting material a year before the intended time of publication.

An article on fire prevention, for instance, is appropriate for the month of October just before the day set aside for calling attention to fires caused by carelessness.  Months in advance, a writer might begin collecting news stories of dangerous fires resulting from carelessness; and from the annual report of the state fire marshal issued in July, he could secure statistics on the causes of fires and the extent of the losses.

To secure material for an article on the Christmas presents that children might make at a cost of twenty-five cents or less, a woman writer jotted down after one Christmas all the information that she could get from her friends; and from these notes she wrote the article early in the following summer.  It was published in the November number of a magazine, at a time when children were beginning to think about making Christmas presents.