It's so good to hear about a scientific organization that is doing excellent, repeatable, high quality work. I wonder how they are compensated/incentivized?
Everything noted by awjlogan is correct in my experience. To add to the question of incentive, Organic Syntheses is a non-profit corporation since its inception. It's worth reading the organization's history page:
Regarding compensation, the model employed for reproduction of experiments is that students associated with the Board of Editors are paid to carry out the checking process:
> Junior checkers (students associated with members of the Board of Editors) now receive an honorarium for their efforts. This change recognizes the more complex and sophisticated procedures that now appear in these volumes. Also, because of the greatly increased cost of chemicals involved in the checking process, checking editors are now reimbursed for their costs; it is no longer reasonable to expect their own departments to absorb these expenses.
The incentives here are so different from a typical chemistry journal in part because Organic Syntheses is not engaging in a race to publish as many articles as possible, nor is it aiming for novelty. They publish about 20-30 procedure papers each year, which would be comparable to a single issue at any other chemistry journal. The subjects are well-trodden areas, but often in need of greater detail than is provided in a typical report.
OrgSyn was/is the absolute gold standard, and partly why I ended up quitting academic organic chemistry. A key metric in organic chemistry is yield, ie. how much of A turns into B. Top journals generally required 15+ examples of yield >85-90% for a new reaction (unless it was really novel). Reference that 90%+ figure against the typical OrgSyn yield and you'll be wondering what a stressed out PhD with limited analytic support knows that a team of real process chemists doesn't.
Process chemistry is not a glamourous field, so people submit their results for at least some recognition and the journal editors replicate the procedures in their own labs independently. Their stipulation is that the single most expensive reagent cannot be more than $500.
The original incentive was the outbreak of World War I, which cut America off from the previously-dominant European suppliers of organic chemicals. This is the first part from the lengthier history linked below:
Prior to 1914, the industrial production of organic chemicals in the United States was very limited both in the number of compounds and quantities. ... Most organic compounds were imported from Europe; research chemicals for use in universities and industrial laboratories were imported from Germany (Kahlbaum's Chemicals), Great Britain (Boots Ltd.), and France. There were only a few small scientific supply houses that distributed small amounts of imported chemicals. Indeed, organic research in universities and industry was limited to a few schools and very few companies. In 1914, the outbreak of the war in Europe led to embargoes, blockades, and destruction of shipping, which meant that chemical supplies in the United States were quickly exhausted. ... Since all the industrial plants and laboratories were in use, the chemistry staff at the universities began to increase their “student preps” to make chemicals needed for research. Clarence G. Derick of the Chemistry Department at the University of Illinois in Urbana, actually initiated “Summer Preps” with about five students in 1914 before the war started. In the summer of 1915, Ernest H. Volwiler, a graduate student, joined Derick's prep group and was placed in charge during 1916 and 1917. Oliver Kamm, a member of the teaching staff after 1915, also helped in the prep work.
The war was also the beginning of organic chemistry for many American chemical businesses. The one I read about most recently was Hooker Electrochemical, which started making materials for high explosives and dozens of other things during the war. Originally it only manufactured sodium hydroxide and bleach. There's a long company-commissioned hagiography (nonetheless containing a lot of fascinating historical information) available here:
"Salt & water, power & people: a short history of Hooker Electrochemical Company"
To me, Hooker is most notable for its contributions to the Manhattan Project and the development of hafnium-free zirconium used in the first pressurized water nuclear reactors. To most people, it's probably most notable (if known at all) for the chemical waste it left buried in Love Canal. It was absorbed into Occidental Petroleum in the 1960s and no longer exists as a separate entity. The history linked above encapsulates a lot of the changes in American chemical businesses between the World Wars even if this company is gone.
