From the Editor / WYI – March and April 2002
From the Editor
What’s your interpretation?
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Members of the AASV were surveyed in 1999 regarding the types of articles they read in each issue of the Journal of Swine Health and Production. The figure shows the percentage of AASV members who read each of ten types of articles. What do you read in every issue of the journal? |
The
"What’s your interpretation?" column of the Journal
of Swine Health and Production is well read. Fully 100% of
AASV members surveyed in 1999 read "What’s your interpretation?"
in every issue (Figure 1).
Unfortunately,
it has become difficult to recruit authors for this section of
the journal. Several times, I have inserted my own ideas to ensure
that "What’s your interpretation?" was not excluded
from an issue. However, this section is not entitled "Cate’s
ideas on distribution of data." Our readers learn from one
another by sharing information. Certainly, if I were to publish
four original research manuscripts each issue, by the time you
had read six issues, you would know all about my research, but
your collectiveknowledge would have increased only slightly.
The purposes of "What’s your interpretation?" are to share ideas on how to look at data and to illustrate useful ways of graphing data to clarify the relationship between two or more parameters. Anyone with an interesting display of data is welcome to submit their work to this column.
I think that private practitioners have a lot to offer, as they examine herd records and laboratory results on a regular basis. What have you seen lately that helped you understand a herd problem? Graduate students can submit parts of their theses, as Dr AngeldeGrau did in the November 2001 issue. This will not preclude publication of original research papers, but takes just a small portion of the thesis to illustrate one finding. Laboratory diagnosticians have interesting information to share, as we saw in Dr Gaylan Josephson’s publications in the September 2001 and January 2002 issues.I think that those of you who are regularly using spread sheets also have useful information to share with the readers. At a workshop during the most recent Allen D Leman conference in Minnesota, Dr Tom Fangman presented several spread sheets created by our members for use in swine herd health programs. The creators of these spread sheets are willing to share them with the wider AASV membership. The "What’s your interpretation?" column could act as a forum to convey the purpose and potential of "shareware" spread sheets, which could be then accessed on the AASV web page. Ultimately, as the spread sheets are more widely used, they will be improved, thereby increasing their utility for us all.
There are probably many other ways we can make good use of "What’s your interpretation?". However, we need submissions so that this column can continue. Clearly it is well read, and therefore it is worth YOUR time to write and submit an article. The due dates for column submissions are 3 months before the issue is to be published. For 2002, the dates are February 4 for the May-June issue, April 2 for the July-August issue, and August 5 for the November-December issue. A submission has been accepted for the September-October issue.
Please contact Karen Richardson at krichard@uoguelph.ca to sign up for a column today.
–Cate Dewey