he University is based on necessary and wrong separations. Your magazine should be an anecdote to that."

Last spring, thinking of making a major change in Research/Penn State, we asked some of our critics how we could improve the magazine. Being human, they wanted longer articles, shorter articles, fewer articles, and more articles; bigger pictures, smaller pictures, color pictures, and no pictures.

The quote above, from the severest and best of our critics, sums up the comments that convinced us to sample, in each issue, the entire breadth of the UniversityÕs $114-million research program instead of grouping all our articles about physical sciences and engineering in the March issue (or health and life sciences in the June, arts and humanities in September, and social and behavioral sciences in December).

The purpose of Research/Penn State is to explain what our faculty and graduate students spend their time doing — how, in the words of our publisher, they are able to teach not last yearÕs understanding, but this yearÕs. "People talk about research, but unless theyÕve been personally involved," one reader noted, "they donÕt understand the process. Research/Penn State explains how research works."

Most of our critics "never paid much attention to the breakdown of categories in each issue" and found themselves reading articles on subjects outside of their career interests — "just out of curiosity." "Penn State itself is very compartmentalized" explained one; another complained of the "parochialism" of university departments. Both read Research/Penn State to find out what their colleagues across campus were doing. A third critic summed up the argument: "Your subject-area format seems to exclude three-fourths of your readers each issue. But the exclusion is more apparent that real — people are not as exclusive in their personal lives. In every issue there are articles that I find interesting and challenging to read."

On critic faulted us for that very point. "Research/Penn State," she said with distaste, "is designed for people to read. The thrust of an article shouldnÕt be the story of the people involved, but the unit of the University."

We cannot please all our critics. We continue to write for readers, believing that, as our severest critic stated, "the magazine should not only be about research, but about the drama of research, which has to do with the relationship between the researcher and his or her endeavor." The drama of research can be difficult to capture in words (one of our writers said of a certain scientist: "Asking him a question is like crawling up into a dark place."). But we hope the magazine that results is worth our descent through the nine levels of editing. One thing that proves its worth are the letters we receive from our readers — or letters, such as the following one, sent to a researcher we featured:

"For quite a while now, our Technical Information Center has been receiving Research/Penn State, and, since I am on the route list, I generally take the time to read the whole thing. (It is almost like a short vacation — a break from the computer system architecture and information handling.) As I read through the September issue, however, I found that I couldnÕt get past pages 22 and 23. Your lovely paintings were like a tonic. My job is high-tech, high-stress, and I could feel everything slide away when I saw those pages."

We hope more of you will write to us and we hope to begin printing your letters on this page. We want to know what you like and dislike. We want you to make us answer the questions that are inevitably provoked by the arcane topics we write about. The dialogue will help us improve.