I'm always pleased when a profesor assigns a reading from FLM as the articles tend to be more meaningful to me than articles from some other journals. The articles tend to also be of manageable length and use language I can readily understand. Given all the above, I wasn't surprised to find the claim from the very first issue that the journal is "intended for math teachers," that the articles should be limited to 2500-5000 words (which I think is as long as most articles ever need to be!). The journal has a good international representation amongst editors, and seems to focus on issues relevant for math educators. The articles seem aimed for people with a mathematics background - not too much focus for elementary teachers - and most topics seem to be around secondary or early universtiy math.
A peculiarity of the journal is that it doesn't feature abstracts. I question this decision on behalf of the editors as I think abstracts are pretty important when I decide if an article will be relevant to what I am interested in researching at the time. I suspect the editors hoped that people would treat the journal as more of a magazine to subscribe and flip through, but when examining back issues for certain topics, it is useful to have an abstract.
Hi David!
ReplyDeleteI too enjoy reading articles from FLM for similar reasons. I also find the mathematics presented quite stimulating and often leaves me with food for thought. Like you, I wonder why it features abstracts online (at least the "Suggestions to the Writers" claims so) but not in the paper journals. Perhaps it is because the articles are succinct enough that the editor does not see the need for abstracts. If you were to open the journal after glancing at the table of contents on the back cover, you must be interested enough to read the whole article(s). Also, formal research studies are not published in FLM and abstracts are typically seen in research papers. My blog answers your last concern. I think the subtitles within the articles are clear enough for readers to go back for certain topics. Feel free to respond if you feel differently about what I said.
David, it's interesting to note the line 'intended for math teachers' in conjunction with your other observations regarding article length, ease of reading, and lack of abstracts. These all seem to tie themselves together to allow for a journal that focuses on accessibility rather than academia, hoping to target math educators like teachers who do not focus on research. Being able to 'flip through' FLM as if it were a magazine also lines up with this reasoning. And 50 years later, much of what you described remains exactly the same!
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