Q1 What is an account article and how it is different from an review article？

AMR and ACR both share the same kind of challenge to the author, which is to write them within quite limited number of words , reflected in an about ten pages of article with appropriate illustrations and references , around personalized account of research. So this usually means that a sizable component of the research has been done in the laboratories of the people writing the article.

While Chemical Reviews would be taking very much more in-depth studies of the literature in relation to the particular topic the authors decided to talk about, an account provides very much opportunities for the researchers involved to express their own personal involvement with a particular topic.

Q2 Why did you choose to publish on the new journal Accounts of Materials Research？

I think it tantalizing to get an invitation to write an article for what will probably become quite a high profile journal. With both the respect I have for Editor-in-Chief Jiaxing Huang and the fact that this is an inaugural edition, I chose AMR. It will have some historical value, "A piece of history", I would say.

节选：

In China, the society is still very much in the stage where I think the best things in life are held in high regard, and that is learning, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Young people are well placed in that way to go forward and be contributive to science.

The big challenge is can you do it in a creative manner, you know, do you want to change from a situation when you're starting off as a country practicing science from being followers to being a leader.

It's always a little difficult, of course, to see where you could go that’s not where other people have been before you, but there are opportunities to look at situations that are probably visited two or three decades ago and not much progress was made because there weren’t the facilities and techniques.

Creativity, if you read the books, is really composed of two things. One is to be happy, to be playful, and to use some of my time just to do crazy things try this try that try the next thing. The next thing in terms of creativity is not enough to make one amazing discovery. You have to repeat it over and over and over again until the scientific community affects the people that you want to take along with you.

You have to take the negative comments that come your way and use them to find answers.