This year, Oil & Gas Journal celebrates its centenary-100 years of giving readers the "truth and nothing but the truth without fear or favor of any individual, firm, or corporation." It's an accomplishment OGJ editors are proud of. And it reminds us of the seriousness of our jobs.
This might be a good time to look at the product we produce each week, at what is immediately recognizable about it, and what is less obvious but equally important in distinguishing OGJ from other petroleum industry publications.
The yellow book
For starters, look at the cover of this issue: two photographs of industry activity, in this case the pipeline industry. These are framed in black, which has for several years been one half of OGJ's distinctive color scheme.
Atop the cover page is one of the most famous images in trade journalism: the stacked, yellow letters "Oil&GasJournal." It's not "The Oil & Gas Journal" nor "Oil and Gas Journal" but "oil" and "gas," coupled without spacing by an ampersand and in Optima type style, that summarize what the magazine covers.
These words are followed by "Journal," a word that derives from French via Middle English and relates to a meaning of "record." OGJ editors are keenly aware that the magazine for which they write and edit is, for the oil and gas industry, its record.
It's a sobering responsibility whose pressure for accuracy and currency is unrelenting.
Taken in its entirety, this cover page is one of the most immediately recognizable and famous images for the world's oil and gas industry. Visit industry offices in Kuala Lumpur, Milan, Sydney, Buenos Aires, London, Moscow, or Mexico City and find copies of Oil & Gas Journal in the waiting rooms and on the desks of executives.
Style and substance
You may also find a copy ripped apart and discarded into a wastebasket, with the article or page the reader wanted probably hanging on his or her wall for future reference-because it's what's inside that counts. And Journal editors have for 100 years provided industry news and technology that have helped readers perform their jobs better.
The tone and style of that delivery is no less distinctive-nor less important-than the magazine's famous cover. But they may be less apparent.
Journal editors write and edit with a view towards transparency and immediate apprehension. Thus, the style is factual, reportorial, direct. As in better newspapers, sentences are typically shorter, diction simpler, and paragraphing more frequent, all to enhance understanding.
It's not that OGJ editors think their readers lack intelligence; far from it. It's that busy men and women in the petroleum industry have little time and less desire to wade through poorly written or edited verbiage to get at meaning.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the job of editing outside-authored manuscripts.
A small example: The phrase "is dependent upon" appears often in manuscripts submitted to OGJ. I always change this phrase to "depends on"; elevating to an active verb is a small change that clears some weeds from around meaning.
Another example: Forecasters' favorite dodge runs something like "Demand is expected to decline." The passive voice verb begs the question of who expects demand to drop. I always change this to "Demand will decline." More weed clearing.
An OGJ editor is often charged with clearing barriers to understanding erected not only by such poor writing but also by highly technical language. This process involves joining a full understanding of what the author wants to say with what the editor knows about his or her readers' tolerance for language that explains it.
The process can be painful; egos are sometimes bruised. But in the end, readers and authors benefit: Useful information and sound technology reach people who can understand and use them.
OGJ style
Remaining space here permits only brief mention of an important tool OGJ editors use to ensure consistency in a range of editorial minutiae: abbreviations, punctuation, acronyms, spelling, titles, and much more. The OGJ Style Book covers by example or rule virtually every situation an editor might encounter.
But why is such a document so important? The answer is simple and related to why OGJ's cover is so distinctive and recognizable: Oil & Gas Journal's identity is no less tied to its language and its tone than to its appearance.
Yes, who we are is inextricably bound up in how we look and sound. That establishes and reinforces our credibility with our readers. And nothing is more important to this 100-year-old publication.
