Price, Duncan M.; A campaign for real thermal analysis. Proc. 29th North American Thermal Analysis Society Conference, September 24-26 (2001) St Louis, Missouri, USA, pp. 645-648
There is a great tendency to "dumb down" thermal analysis (particularly from instrument vendors who seem to package thermal analysis like a soap powder). Often a point on the property-temperature plot from a thermal analyzer is selected as a unique parameter defining the properties of a material with little regard as to the influence of experimental variables, sample preparation or technique used. Most materials are not subjected to the same "tests" in the real world and there is little correlation between predicted and observed performance. Users should be encouraged to understand the task and think laterally in order to do the right experiments. Finally, one should critically examine the data in order to translate them into a useful and useable result.