Writing Tech Brief By HackerNoon

A SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL AWAKENING


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The question, however, is not so much one of original outlay, but which of the two journals gives most for the money.
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Our English cotemporary, Engineering, appears to have seriously exercised itself in the perusal of our good-natured article on "English and American Scientific and Mechanical Engineering Journalism," which appeared in the Scientific American, February 4th; at least, we so judge from the tenor of an article in response thereto, covering a full page of that journal. The article in question is a curiosity in literature. It deserves a much wider circulation than Engineering can give it, and we would gladly transfer it to our columns, but for its exceeding length—a serious fault generally, not only with Engineering's articles, but most other technical journals published in England. It would scarcely do for them to be brief in their discussions, and above all other things, spice and piquancy must always be excluded. Engineering evidently labors under the conviction that the heavier it can make its discussions, the more profoundly will it be able to impress its readers. Hence, we are equally astonished and gratified to find a gleam of humor flashing out from the ordinary sober-sided composition of our learned contemporary. The article came to us just as we were laboring under an attack of dyspepsia, and its reading fairly shook our atrabilious corpus. We said to ourselves, "can it be possible that Engineering is about to experience the new birth, to undergo regeneration, and a baptism of fire?" The article is really worth reading, and we begin to indulge the hope that at least one English technical is going to try to make itself not only useful, but readable and interesting. And what is most perplexingly novel in this new manifestation, is the display of a considerable amount of egotism, which we had always supposed to be a sinful and naughty thing in technical journalism. And, as if to magnify this self-complaisance, it actually alludes to its "own extensive and ever-increasing circulation in America." Now to show how small a thing can impart comfort to the soul of our cotemporary, we venture to say that the circulation of Engineering in this country cannot much exceed three hundred copies per week.

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