Editorial Review:Product Description:Articles cover all areas of science and endeavor to provide explanations of research.
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Diverse science articles written for scientists and the scientifically literate
This bimonthly magazine contains science articles written by scientists for the scientifically literate reader (primarily other scientists). W Boudville's review is, in my view, incorrect on most points. His/her claim that the American Scientist is simply the American equivalent of Nature is totally wrong. Nature is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that contains (tersely written) professional articles at the cutting edge of modern research. The American Scientist contains articles that are written by scientists but for a much wider audience, it is certainly not meant to publish latest/greatest scientific results. It is not a peer reviewed journal, and the articles are not research papers and are meant to be accessible to a wider audience. Virtually all areas of the natural and physical sciences are covered in this publication including physics, astrophysics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, geology, paleontology, psychology, neuro-chemistry and many others. There are also occassionally contributions in the fields of enginerring and architecture as well. This may sound like a real hodge-podge, but the articles are generally well written and informative. There are typically 10 or so articles in each issue as well as 10-15 book reviews. I've been a subscriber for 10+ years. Some of the articles that have been most memorable include one on the complex chemistry of the iron in African rocks and how difficult it was for ancient Africans to smelt iron, a recent article on the complex geology of the Moon and what it tells us about it's formation and early evolution, and some surprising results about the Riemann Zeta function. The level (and amount of technical detail) of the articles is well above Scientific American or Sky and Telescope for example, and it is typically assumed that the reader has at least a batchelor's degree in science or engineering. If you are broadly interested in science and want to read a wide range of interesting, technical detailed articles, this is the magazine for you.
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A proportion
American Scientist is to Scientific American as polished gold is to golden polish. The former stands out for its quality, the latter for its shine.
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American equivalent of Nature
Unlike Scientific American, this journal offers research level articles, spanning all of science. Internationally, it is comparable to Britain's Nature. Except that this journal consciously does not have that emphasis towards the biological sciences.
As you might then expect, the preferred audience is professional scientists (and engineers). Typically, a scientist might direct her paper here, instead of a journal in her field, if she expects that her results might be considered of interest to a broader science community. Oh, and it would raise her profile amongst them, which certainly is desirable.
Another important use of this journal is to search for job vacancies in your field. Many American and overseas universities list tenure track and postdoctoral positions here. But beware! Some fraction of these positions already have preferred candidates. The universities are only advertising here to comply with EEO rules, and may often slant the ad or filter the resultant applications to ensure that only the desired candidate gets the job.
But even in the case where a position actually has no predetermined candidate, often many qualified people will apply. For a tenure track Assistant Professor job, you can expect over 100 applications, from people with PhDs.