[hamza (OP)]

Hi guys.. i know these kinds of threads may not be allowed in the forum but i did'nt get help from any other place so i thought why not ask people on this forum.. I am actually looking forward to subscribing for this magazine called NewScientist.. I wanted to know if it would be worth spending money for. I want a detailed review of this magazine from someone who is a subscriber or has even read an issue or two.  I want to know details like the number of pages the magazine has, the paper quality and even the print quality.. and all other stuff one should know before going for it.. I would really really appreciate if someone helps me in this particular case. And i am sorry if i am violating the forum rules but i really do need help..

[Karen W.]

I think you are OK because you did not insert a link.. which is good. But unfortunately I do not subscribe to any magazines so I have no idea.. perhaps you can find reviews on the net about the magazine itself, by going to the magazine site! Others may know something to be able to help you.. as long as there is no promotion of the magazine on the site I can see no reason why your inquirery as stated above would not be OK! Good luck!

[hamza (OP)]

Thanks Karen.. I have gone through their website and through the net but did not get helpfull reviews.I hope i get some around here.

[lyner]

New Scientist is a brill magazine.
It is full of interesting stuff and at a level that is ok for lay people and ok for people 'in the know'.
I read it, probably, three or four times a year. There's always something interesting and the style is very easy. Their formula really hasn't changed since I used to read it at School but it hasn't dated.
Look at their website.

[techmind]

... NewScientist.. I wanted to know if it would be worth spending money for.

Not sure how many pages it has. There are quite a few pages of -mostly medical/biotech- jobs, as well as the editorial. As sophiecentaur says, it's written for a scientifically-interested, but non-specialist audience. It covers most of the sciences, but probably has some leaning towards biology. From time to time they have feature articles on aspects of the brain and the senses or thought or psycological things which I find absorbing, even though they're outside my field.
We have a subscription at work, and these days I probably get around to looking at one or two issues per month. I usually find an issue keeps me occupied for 40 minutes or so, but as always sometimes you get one with less of interest, and other times there's loads of fascinating stuff. The paper/print quality is very good. It does seem quite expensive for the cover price, but hopefully it works out quite a bit cheaper if you have a subscription?

[SquarishTriangle]

It does lots of interesting stuff but because they tend to put a popular spin on their articles, it's not so great if you're after just raw, balanced science. It is a good starting point for getting up to speed on the lastest headlines...I just wouldn't rely on it as a reference. Depends what you're after.

[Karen W.]

AH good some replies!

[another_someone]

New Scientist is a British publication, so it is no surprise that you would not have it over there.

I used to read it regularly.  It is a little populist (I suppose anything that tries to address a general readership, and is on the shelves or general stationary stores, must be to some extent), and generally only superficial (again, given its breadth, it cannot really have space to be both deep and broad).  Nonetheless, given that it is generally full of adds for science based jobs, it is clear that its audience are scientists (although clearly not targeted for specialist knowledge in any one discipline).

The reason I stopped buying it is not that I thought it was bad, only that too often I would buy it and find I simply did not have the time to read it, so it seemed wasteful to keep buying it.

The other science magazine I used to buy (and for many years had on subscription) was Scientific American (I have almost every issue from 1971 to about 2000).  In that case, I felt that in more recent years it had become too populist, and increasingly too superficial, and ever more moving away from hard science (I think part of the problem that I perceive is that in the decades since 1971, science has moved from being very open to becoming ever more secretive, and tied up in trade secrets, patents, and legal restraints on publication for defence reasons - one issue which focussed on the state of Japan's laser technology, although it was permitted to be sold everywhere else in the world, was seen as being in too sensitive from a military perspective in the USA, so they could read about Japanese advanced lasers in the Soviet Union, but they could not read about it in the USA).

[Bored chemist]

I have been a subscriber for years so I must think it's good value. It's also where I found my job though that might not be so useful to those outside the UK (I gather that there are different printings for other countries but I don't know)