from the editors 

The appearance of this issue ends an 
extended hiatus in our regular publish-
ing schedule. We very much appreciate 
the indulgence and patience of our 
subscribers. Numbers 2 and 3 of 
Volume VII will follow in short order 
this winter, and Volume VIII, Number 1 
will appear close on their heels. Sub-
scription renewal notices for Volume 
VIII will accompany the last number of 
Volume VII. 

We hope the new format of the 
journal meets your approval. As 
always, we will be glad to have sugges-
tion for improvement. 

With this Volume we welcome Seale 
R. Doss of Ripon College as our new 
Associate Editor in charge of book 
reviews. Please send books for review, 
reviews and queries about reviews 
directly to Seale. A detailed description 
of the journal's book review policy and 
preferences will be included in the 
next issue. 

New Feature: Open Forum 

Just when you thought that we were 
gonna get staid and stuffy! Some of our 
readers have expressed concern that 
going journal might cause Informal 
Logic to lose some of its informality-
something that many of our subscribers 
have said they appreciate. Be assured 
that we will strive to maintain that 
feel ing in the journal. 

One thing that may help is the new 
feature we introduce in this issue called 
Open Forum. It was suggested to us by 
this issue's contributor, Jonathan E. 
Adler, and we are very grateful to 
Jonathan both for his suggestion and 
for his own contribution with which we 
are pleased to inaugurate this feature. 

The premise behind Open Forum, 
more or less as Jonathan put it to us, 
is this: there needs to be a place where 
people can vet an idea without having 
worked it out in detail, a place where 
they can receive responses before 
attempting to work that idea into an 
article. That is what we hope the Open 
Forum will be. We invite our subscrib-
ers and readers to send us thei r ma-
terial for this feature. Such submissions 
should be clearly marked: Open Forum.