Editing If (magazine) (section)

==Bibliographic details==
[[File:If cover variations.jpg|thumb|left|Twelve issues of ''If'', showing the major variations in cover design over the magazine's lifetime]]
''If'' was a digest-sized magazine throughout its life. It began at 164 pages and with only the fifth issue, November 1952, dropped to 124 pages. The page count increased again to 134 pages with the July 1959 issue, and to 164 pages with the September 1965 issue; it stayed at this length until the September–October 1970 issue. The page count was then increased to 180 with the June 1971 issue, and reduced to 164 for the last issue, December 1974.<ref name=issues/><ref name=Tuck_569/><ref name=page_count>The page count includes both the front and back covers; some references such as Tuck only count the pages between the covers. The magazine itself was inconsistent about this: for example the September 1969 issue treated the first page inside the cover as page 1, but July 1969 issue counted this as page 3, making the front cover page 1.</ref> It was priced at 35 cents to begin with, and increased to 40 cents with the March 1963 issue, to 50 cents with the December 1964 issue, to 60 cents with the August 1967 issue, and finally to 75 cents with the September–October 1970 issue.<ref name=issues/><ref name=Tuck_569/> With the April 1972 issue, UPD began using card stock for the covers, rather than paper, and continued to do so until the magazine ceased publication.<ref name=issues>See the individual issues. For convenience, an online index is available at {{cite web | url = http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Magazine:If | title = Magazine:If&nbsp;— ISFDB | access-date = 23 February 2008 | publisher = Texas A&M University | archive-date = 25 May 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120525214015/http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Magazine:If | url-status = dead }}</ref>

''If'' was originally subtitled ''Worlds of Science Fiction'', but in November 1961 the cover logo was changed to ''Worlds of If Science Fiction''.<ref>{{cite web |title=If |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/if |website=SFE: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |publisher=SFE Ltd. |access-date=19 March 2024}}</ref> UPD formally changed the title to ''Worlds of If'' in the January/February 1972 issue<ref>{{cite web |title=Full Note for Series: If / Worlds of If |url=https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/note.cgi?Series+40361 |website=The Internet Speculative Fiction Database |publisher=ISFDB |access-date=2 April 2024 |quote=the original title of the magazine was If: Worlds of Science Fiction. The logo was arranged in such a way that it looked like the title was Worlds of If. In fact, there was some confusion over what the title of the magazine was in 1969 when it was sold to Universal Publishing; they had the name officially changed to Worlds of If in 1972.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Archives & Special Collections: If/Worlds of If: Historical Note |url=https://finding-aids.library.gatech.edu/repositories/2/resources/1757 |website=Georgia Tech Library |publisher=Georgia Institute of Technology |access-date=2 April 2024 |quote=Its original title was If: Worlds of Science Fiction, but the location of “Worlds of” above “If” on the magazine covers in the 1960s led many to believe the title was Worlds of If. The UPD Publishing Corp. formally changed the title to Worlds of If in the January/February 1972 issue.}}</ref> and in September 1974, officially registered the title of the magazine as ''Worlds of If'' with the [[United States Patent and Trademark Office|USPTO]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Trademark Status & Document Retrieval (TSDR): US Serial, Registration, or Reference No.: 80992559: WORLDS OF IF |url=https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=80992559&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch |website=USPTO: United States Patent and Trademark Office |publisher=United States Patent and Trademark Office |access-date=19 March 2024 |quote=Registration Date: Sep. 03, 1974. The trademark application was registered, but subsequently it was cancelled or invalidated and removed from the registry. Date Cancelled: Feb. 17, 1981. Standard Character Claim: Yes. The mark consists of standard characters without claim to any particular font style, size, or color.}}</ref>

The magazine was bimonthly until the March 1954 issue, which was followed by April 1954, inaugurating a monthly period that ran until June 1955. This was followed by August 1955, resuming a bimonthly schedule that ran until July 1964, with only one irregularity, when the February 1959 issue was followed by July 1959. After July 1964, ''If'' ran a monthly schedule until April 1970, with three omissions: there were no issues dated September 1964, June 1969, or August 1969. From May–June 1970, the issues were bimonthly and bore the names of two months. This bimonthly sequence ran through the last issue at the end of 1974. The date the magazine printed on the cover reverted to a single month with the June 1971 issue, though the contents page still used two months to identify the issue. The volume numbering began with six issues to a volume: there were three errors on the magazine contents page, with volume 8 number 1 incorrectly printed as volume 7 number 6; volume 9 number 3 printed as volume 8 number 6; and volume 10 number 1 printed as volume 10 number 6. Volume 14, which began in March 1964, ran through the end of the year, with seven numbers; the remaining volumes had 12 numbers each except for volume 19 which had 10 and volume 22 which had 8.<ref name=issues/><ref name=Tuck_569/><ref name=NESF_303>Brian Stableford, "If", in Peter Nicholls, "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction", p.&nbsp;303.</ref>

Several British editions of ''If'' were produced. In 1953 and 1954, Strato Publications reprinted 15 issues, numbering them from 1 to 15; another 18 were reprinted between 1959 and 1962, with the issue numbers started at 1 again. Between January and November 1967 a UK edition appeared from Gold Star Publications; these were identical to the US edition dated ten months previously. Between 1972 and 1974, 15 of the UPD editions of ''If'' were imported, renumbered and repriced for UK distribution. The numbering, inexplicably, ran from 1 to 9, and then 11, 1, 13, 3, 4 and 5.<ref name=ESF_609/>

The editorial succession at ''If'' is as follows:<ref name=issues/><ref name=Contento_WoI/>
* [[Paul W. Fairman]]: March–September 1952.
* [[James L. Quinn (editor)|James L. Quinn]]: November 1952&nbsp;– August 1958. From May 1953 to March 1954, [[Larry Shaw (editor)|Larry T. Shaw]] was Associate Editor; he wrote editorials for at least three issues, beginning with September 1953, and generally did most of the editorial work.<ref name=issues/>
* [[Damon Knight]]: October 1958&nbsp;– February 1959.
* [[H. L. Gold]]: July 1959&nbsp;– November 1961.
* [[Frederik Pohl]], January 1962&nbsp;– May 1969.
* [[Ejler Jakobsson]]: October 1969&nbsp;– January/February 1974
* [[Jim Baen]]: March/April–December 1974.
* Clifford Hong: September/November 1986.
* Justin T. O'Conor Sloane: February 2024 –

Eight selections of stories from ''If'' have been published. Two were edited by Quinn: ''The First World of If'' (1957) and ''The Second World of If'' (1958); four by Pohl: ''The Best Science Fiction from If'' (1964), ''The If Reader of Science Fiction'' (1966), ''The Second If Reader of Science Fiction'' (1968), and ''Worlds of If'' (1986); and two by Jakobsson, both published as by "The Editors of If": ''The Best from If'' (1973) and ''The Best from If Vol II'' (1974).<ref name="Tuck_569" /><ref name="ESF_942-4">Brian Stableford, "Frederik Pohl", in Clute & Nicholls, eds., ''Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', pp.&nbsp;942–944.</ref><ref name="ESF_637">Malcolm Edwards, "Ejler Jakobsson", in Clute & Nicholls, eds., ''Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', p.&nbsp;637.</ref><ref name="Contento_Pohl">{{cite web| url = http://www.philsp.com/homeville/ISFAC/b25.htm#A617| title = Books, Listed by Author| access-date = 1 March 2008| publisher = Phil Stephenson-Payne| archive-date = 28 April 2009| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090428180037/http://www.philsp.com/homeville/ISFAC/b25.htm#A617| url-status = dead}}</ref>  In addition, two anthologies drew all their contents from ''If'' without mentioning the magazine: ''The 6 Fingers of Time and 5 Other Science Fiction Novelets'' (1965) and ''The Frozen Planet and Other Stories'' (1966).  Both were edited by Samuel H Post, who was not credited.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Stableford |first=Brian |last2=Ashley |first2=Mike |last3=Nicholls |first3=Peter |date=February 18, 2021 |title=Culture : If : SFE : Science Fiction Encyclopedia |url=http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/if |access-date=August 18, 2023 |website=Encyclopedia of Science Fiction}}</ref>