SIR

Until the past few years, both Nature and Science confined their articles and letters to a rather small number of words. This was both good and bad; good in that the articles were short and to the point; bad in that it eliminated studies that were complex. I first thought that the Supplementary Information sections were a great idea. Here was a way to place at the readers' disposal important data (tables or figures) that were necessary background to the work, but not necessary to the reading and understanding of the paper.

However, some recent articles refute my thinking. One or two have contained tens of pages of this supplementary material, essential to the reading and understanding of the article. Ten pages of Supplementary Information are not unusual, and the average for Nature is about five pages.

I suggest either that you either publish hard-copy papers whole and integrated in a long form, or publish them whole and integrated on the web, as you now do with Methods sections.