Support Services for Surgeon General's Reports, Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

For the past 5 years, Cygnus has assisted the Office on Smoking and Health in producing Surgeon General's reports on smoking and health. These reports play a crucial role in providing authoritative, documented information needed by researchers, policymakers, community activists, and the general public to combat the public health scourge of tobacco use. The first report produced by Cygnus, Tobacco Use Among U.S. Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups--African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics: A Report of the Surgeon General, was released at the White House in April 1998. The 1998 Report is the only single, comprehensive source of data on the patterns of tobacco use, physical effects related to tobacco smoking and chewing, and societal and psychosocial factors associated with tobacco use among each group. The next report is in the review stage and should be completed and released in 1999.

To produce these high visibility reports, we provide technical rewriting, editing (including detailed author queries), and proofreading assistance; term, data, and reference verification; graphic design, layout, and desktop publishing services; overall production and scheduling management; materials for briefing kits and the press conference, such as posters, photographs, and selected sections of the report; and electronic files for uploading the report to the Internet. In addition, we make travel and hotel arrangements for attendees of the initial editorial meeting and for authors who attend the press conference.

Indexing Journal Articles in Biomedical Literature, National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services

In providing indexing and abstracting support to NLM, Cygnus indexes and abstracts more than 40,000 publications annually, which have a 99.8 percent acceptance rate. Our Ph.D.-trained professionals analyze the subject content for each article and assign descriptors and check tags and qualifiers selected from Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and Index Medicus. We also ensure that each record transmitted to NLM includes all requisite data, such as author, author affiliation, title, vernacular title, pagination, foreign language codes, and research grant support, and is formatted appropriately for direct upload into the NLM biomedical literature database. Each of these records is used to develop and maintain the NLM databases.

Some of our indexers and abstractors are experts as native speakers of foreign languages. This asset enhances Cygnus' capability to perform descriptive indexing of articles in foreign language medical journals by using MeSH, Supplementary Chemical Records, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Indexing Manual (MEDLARS), Technical Notes, Technical Memoranda, and Translation Memoranda and to provide translations and transliterations of titles and authors' names that are printed in Chinese, Cyrillic, and Japanese.

Eric Clearinghouses on Assessment and Evaluation and on Urban Education

For several years, Cygnus has provided abstracting, controlled-vocabulary indexing, and cataloging services to these two ERIC clearinghouses. We also provide controlled-vocabulary thesaurus maintenance. We provide an estimated 1,600 original edited and copyedited abstracts per year for input into ERIC's Resources in Education. The abstracts are created, in accordance with the ERIC Processing Manual, from books and unpublished research reports in the areas of educational assessment and evaluation. These abstracts become database records, which we have worked with the clearinghouse to format in the development of the database, and are also published in the Current Index to Journals in Education and Resources in Education. Cygnus designed and conducted the initial market research and needs assessment for Current Index to Journals in Education. We also provide original annotations of journal articles published in the areas of educational assessment and evaluation.

Our indexers use controlled vocabulary found in the ERIC Thesaurus of Descriptors to provide accurate and reliable indexing for all records submitted to ERIC. We also developed and maintain a separate indexing thesaurus file of those terms not found in the Thesaurus of Descriptors but that are necessary to provide complete indexing for articles. In addition, this discrete indexing thesaurus may be used by the clearinghouse in proposing future potential ERIC descriptors.

Cygnus performs the actual data entry of bibliographic, index, and catalog information created by us and others. In other database work, we develop and maintain the educational assessment and evaluation subfile of the ERIC databases.

Editorial Support Services, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

For this diverse and active contract, Cygnus provided editorial support that included substantive editing, copyediting, proofreading, translation, graphic design, layout, desktop publishing, production, video postproduction, and transcription of meeting records. The publications ranged from conference announcements and issues in the At-A-Glance series to reports to Congress and manuals that varied in length; audience; extent of text, graphic elements, and statistical tables and figures; elaborateness and difficulty of the design; use of color; and demands of the production schedule. Many assignments had tight deadlines and required extremely quick turnaround. This high level of effort and accomplishment required maximal communication between Cygnus and the client, which we developed and sustained.

We substantively edited and at times significantly rewrote more than 550 manuscripts written by CDC researchers for submission to many different professional journals. Extensive query lists prepared by project editors accompanied these edited manuscripts. The manuscripts varied in content, audience, and style, which was specified in each journal's instructions to authors. One of our editors was trained by CDC to edit issues of the prestigious Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (the MMWR).

We assisted with the editing, graphic design, and desktop publishing of dozens of publications. Among the more notable book-length publications are CDC's first compilation of national data on chronic disease prevalence presented by State, Chronic Diseases and Their Risk Factors; the first Physical Activity and Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, produced in time for the opening of the summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996; the three-volume series 1995 Assisted Reproductive Technology Success Rates, which received the 1997 CDC Communications Award for print communication; and two volumes of the Media Campaign Resource Book for Tobacco Control, the premier publication for planning a tobacco control advertising campaign.

Cygnus provided postproduction video services for CDC, including producing the "MTV Talks Tobacco" video itself and a highlights reel for presentation at a national conference. We also designed and prepared materials and then judged 1,000 entries for the Office on Smoking and Health's teen media contests.

We provided ongoing and numerous translation services for CDC. Our translation activities included a patient handbook on diabetes from English to Spanish; slides on standard weight and height measuring techniques from English to Spanish; a report on CDC's 1992-1996 collaborative activities in Russia from English to Russian; a summary of policies and strategies for the prevention of certain noncommunicable diseases in Russia from Russian to English; slides to accompany a publication on building the capacity of schools to improve the health of a nation from English to Russian and Chinese; and German regulations on tobacco products from German to English.

Finally, Cygnus provided writers and reporters to attend meetings for CDC and write newsletter articles and meeting summaries. We also transcribed audiocassette tapes from focus groups, as well as conducted a series of focus groups to determine the information consumers would need to understand a consumer's guide to fertility clinics' success rates.

Support Services for the Ninth Special Report to the U.S. Congress on Alcohol and Health, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Cygnus provided the full range of editorial and graphics support for the production of this multiauthor 460-page report, which was released in June 1997. This state-of-the-science report presents current research findings on the effects of alcohol and the treatment and prevention of alcohol abuse and alcoholism for a broad audience that includes members of Congress, researchers, educators, practitioners, patients, and the public.

Our editorial support included soliciting and arranging for peer reviewers for each chapter of the report; providing library and online information services; performing science writing and editing; providing graphic design and desktop publishing services; preparing clearance materials; and developing a dissemination plan. Cygnus science writers and editors rewrote and substantively edited chapters as needed, wrote the report's front matter and executive summary, and wrote summaries of editorial board meetings. Our copy editors, proofreaders, and editorial assistants ensured that spelling, punctuation, capitalization, hyphenation, and other style variables were consistent with the GPO Style Manual, verified references and data, obtained copyright permissions, and obtained reference materials for authors. Cygnus' health information database specialist conducted online database searches to locate reference materials.

Cygnus' graphics staff created the report's layout, including selecting typefaces, type sizes, paper stock, and ink; designing the cover; and preparing approximately 45 tables using a standard format. To ensure that the published report reached all appropriate Institute constituents, Cygnus developed a dissemination plan and prepared promotional materials, such as advertisements, press releases, and a brochure highlighting the report's most compelling findings.

Publications Development, National Institute of Justice (NIJ), U.S. Department of Justice

For 4 years Cygnus worked with NIJ to prepare annual reports to Congress and special publications as needed. In addition to producing three annual reports highlighting the research activities of the Institute, we also produced special Research In Briefs on a variety of criminal justice topics as well as lists of awards.

In producing these publications, Cygnus editorial staff developed work plans and schedules; collected and synthesized information; interviewed NIJ staff and grantees; wrote the text; edited for clarity, completeness, and consistency in style; proofread editorial, reviewer, and author changes and revisions; verified the accuracy of references; prepared all front and back matter; designed the layout, covers, tables, charts, and graphs; proofread the desktop published text and graphics; and prepared electronic or hard copy camera-ready artwork.t

Support Services for Surgeon General's Reports, Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

For the past 5 years, Cygnus has assisted the Office on Smoking and Health in producing Surgeon General's reports on smoking and health. These reports play a crucial role in providing authoritative, documented information needed by researchers, policymakers, community activists, and the general public to combat the public health scourge of tobacco use. The first report produced by Cygnus, Tobacco Use Among U.S. Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups--African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics: A Report of the Surgeon General, was released at the White House in April 1998. The 1998 Report is the only single, comprehensive source of data on the patterns of tobacco use, physical effects related to tobacco smoking and chewing, and societal and psychosocial factors associated with tobacco use among each group. The next report is in the review stage and should be completed and released in 1999.

To produce these high visibility reports, we provide technical rewriting, editing (including detailed author queries), and proofreading assistance; term, data, and reference verification; graphic design, layout, and desktop publishing services; overall production and scheduling management; materials for briefing kits and the press conference, such as posters, photographs, and selected sections of the report; and electronic files for uploading the report to the Internet. In addition, we make travel and hotel arrangements for attendees of the initial editorial meeting and for authors who attend the press conference.

Indexing Journal Articles in Biomedical Literature, National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services

In providing indexing and abstracting support to NLM, Cygnus indexes and abstracts more than 40,000 publications annually, which have a 99.8 percent acceptance rate. Our Ph.D.-trained professionals analyze the subject content for each article and assign descriptors and check tags and qualifiers selected from Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and Index Medicus. We also ensure that each record transmitted to NLM includes all requisite data, such as author, author affiliation, title, vernacular title, pagination, foreign language codes, and research grant support, and is formatted appropriately for direct upload into the NLM biomedical literature database. Each of these records is used to develop and maintain the NLM databases.

Some of our indexers and abstractors are experts as native speakers of foreign languages. This asset enhances Cygnus' capability to perform descriptive indexing of articles in foreign language medical journals by using MeSH, Supplementary Chemical Records, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Indexing Manual (MEDLARS), Technical Notes, Technical Memoranda, and Translation Memoranda and to provide translations and transliterations of titles and authors' names that are printed in Chinese, Cyrillic, and Japanese.

Eric Clearinghouses on Assessment and Evaluation and on Urban Education

For several years, Cygnus has provided abstracting, controlled-vocabulary indexing, and cataloging services to these two ERIC clearinghouses. We also provide controlled-vocabulary thesaurus maintenance. We provide an estimated 1,600 original edited and copyedited abstracts per year for input into ERIC's Resources in Education. The abstracts are created, in accordance with the ERIC Processing Manual, from books and unpublished research reports in the areas of educational assessment and evaluation. These abstracts become database records, which we have worked with the clearinghouse to format in the development of the database, and are also published in the Current Index to Journals in Education and Resources in Education. Cygnus designed and conducted the initial market research and needs assessment for Current Index to Journals in Education. We also provide original annotations of journal articles published in the areas of educational assessment and evaluation.

Our indexers use controlled vocabulary found in the ERIC Thesaurus of Descriptors to provide accurate and reliable indexing for all records submitted to ERIC. We also developed and maintain a separate indexing thesaurus file of those terms not found in the Thesaurus of Descriptors but that are necessary to provide complete indexing for articles. In addition, this discrete indexing thesaurus may be used by the clearinghouse in proposing future potential ERIC descriptors.

Cygnus performs the actual data entry of bibliographic, index, and catalog information created by us and others. In other database work, we develop and maintain the educational assessment and evaluation subfile of the ERIC databases.

Editorial Support Services, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

For this diverse and active contract, Cygnus provided editorial support that included substantive editing, copyediting, proofreading, translation, graphic design, layout, desktop publishing, production, video postproduction, and transcription of meeting records. The publications ranged from conference announcements and issues in the At-A-Glance series to reports to Congress and manuals that varied in length; audience; extent of text, graphic elements, and statistical tables and figures; elaborateness and difficulty of the design; use of color; and demands of the production schedule. Many assignments had tight deadlines and required extremely quick turnaround. This high level of effort and accomplishment required maximal communication between Cygnus and the client, which we developed and sustained.

We substantively edited and at times significantly rewrote more than 550 manuscripts written by CDC researchers for submission to many different professional journals. Extensive query lists prepared by project editors accompanied these edited manuscripts. The manuscripts varied in content, audience, and style, which was specified in each journal's instructions to authors. One of our editors was trained by CDC to edit issues of the prestigious Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (the MMWR).

We assisted with the editing, graphic design, and desktop publishing of dozens of publications. Among the more notable book-length publications are CDC's first compilation of national data on chronic disease prevalence presented by State, Chronic Diseases and Their Risk Factors; the first Physical Activity and Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, produced in time for the opening of the summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996; the three-volume series 1995 Assisted Reproductive Technology Success Rates, which received the 1997 CDC Communications Award for print communication; and two volumes of the Media Campaign Resource Book for Tobacco Control, the premier publication for planning a tobacco control advertising campaign.

Cygnus provided postproduction video services for CDC, including producing the "MTV Talks Tobacco" video itself and a highlights reel for presentation at a national conference. We also designed and prepared materials and then judged 1,000 entries for the Office on Smoking and Health's teen media contests.

We provided ongoing and numerous translation services for CDC. Our translation activities included a patient handbook on diabetes from English to Spanish; slides on standard weight and height measuring techniques from English to Spanish; a report on CDC's 1992-1996 collaborative activities in Russia from English to Russian; a summary of policies and strategies for the prevention of certain noncommunicable diseases in Russia from Russian to English; slides to accompany a publication on building the capacity of schools to improve the health of a nation from English to Russian and Chinese; and German regulations on tobacco products from German to English.

Finally, Cygnus provided writers and reporters to attend meetings for CDC and write newsletter articles and meeting summaries. We also transcribed audiocassette tapes from focus groups, as well as conducted a series of focus groups to determine the information consumers would need to understand a consumer's guide to fertility clinics' success rates.

Support Services for the Ninth Special Report to the U.S. Congress on Alcohol and Health, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Cygnus provided the full range of editorial and graphics support for the production of this multiauthor 460-page report, which was released in June 1997. This state-of-the-science report presents current research findings on the effects of alcohol and the treatment and prevention of alcohol abuse and alcoholism for a broad audience that includes members of Congress, researchers, educators, practitioners, patients, and the public.

Our editorial support included soliciting and arranging for peer reviewers for each chapter of the report; providing library and online information services; performing science writing and editing; providing graphic design and desktop publishing services; preparing clearance materials; and developing a dissemination plan. Cygnus science writers and editors rewrote and substantively edited chapters as needed, wrote the report's front matter and executive summary, and wrote summaries of editorial board meetings. Our copy editors, proofreaders, and editorial assistants ensured that spelling, punctuation, capitalization, hyphenation, and other style variables were consistent with the GPO Style Manual, verified references and data, obtained copyright permissions, and obtained reference materials for authors. Cygnus' health information database specialist conducted online database searches to locate reference materials.

Cygnus' graphics staff created the report's layout, including selecting typefaces, type sizes, paper stock, and ink; designing the cover; and preparing approximately 45 tables using a standard format. To ensure that the published report reached all appropriate Institute constituents, Cygnus developed a dissemination plan and prepared promotional materials, such as advertisements, press releases, and a brochure highlighting the report's most compelling findings.

Publications Development, National Institute of Justice (NIJ), U.S. Department of Justice

For 4 years Cygnus worked with NIJ to prepare annual reports to Congress and special publications as needed. In addition to producing three annual reports highlighting the research activities of the Institute, we also produced special Research In Briefs on a variety of criminal justice topics as well as lists of awards.

In producing these publications, Cygnus editorial staff developed work plans and schedules; collected and synthesized information; interviewed NIJ staff and grantees; wrote the text; edited for clarity, completeness, and consistency in style; proofread editorial, reviewer, and author changes and revisions; verified the accuracy of references; prepared all front and back matter; designed the layout, covers, tables, charts, and graphs; proofread the desktop published text and graphics; and prepared electronic or hard copy camera-ready artwork.