LINGUIST List 23.4056
|
Mon Oct 01 2012
Disc: RE: Prices in Reviews (Does editing matter?)
Editor for this issue: Kristen Dunkinson
<kristen linguistlist.org>
|
Date: 01-Oct-2012
From: Mark Mandel <mamandelldc.upenn.edu>
Subject: RE: Prices in Reviews (Does editing matter?)
 E-mail this message to a friend
I agree with Jim Fidelholtz (23.3814) that prices
should be mentioned in reviews. The editors' objection --
> For several years, the LINGUIST List has included the
> prices of books in book announcements. However, since there can
> be several editions of a single book with different prices or
> currencies, we made the decision not to include this information in
> the review itself, as book reviews are generally quite lengthy to begin
> with.
does not hold up.
For example, the most recent review listed when I just searched the
archives for ''review'' in the subject was in issue 23.3578:
> Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 12:37:04
> From: Lorie Heggie
> Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-33.html
> AUTHOR: Nicholas Sobin
> TITLE: Syntactic Analysis
> SUBTITLE: The Basics
> PUBLISHER: Wiley-Blackwell
> YEAR: 2011
The announcement lists two editions, as
> Hardback: ISBN: 9781444338959 Pages: 192 Price: U.S. $ 84.95
> Paperback: ISBN: 9781444335071 Pages: 192 Price: U.S. $ 29.95
Yes, the review is lengthy: 247 lines, 14675 bytes. These listings would
add less than 1% to its size-- even less if minimized to
> Hardback U.S. $ 84.95, Paperback U.S. $ 29.95
or even
> hb USD 84.95, pb USD 29.95
Some books have more editions; put each set on a separate line for
easier reading:
> French: hb € xx.xx, pb xx.xx
> English: hb £ xx.xx, pb xx.xx
> Russian: hb RUB xx.xx, pb xx.xx
> Japanese: pb ¥ xx.xx
This would allow for the easy winnowing Jim mentions. The buyer with
limited funds could easily decide which if any of these to buy, or could
add just one or two to a ''short list'' of volumes to be further considered
for purchase. They could later follow up the links for further information
on just the books to be bought, rather than spend valuable time and
energy chasing a trail of links that may or may not readily yield the
information sought. As Jim says,
> And it is *not* an argument
> that the information can be gleaned by going to a link in the review
> (not even always does the information pop up easily after going to
> the link--but it should be available without links).
--
Mark A. Mandel
Linguistic Data Consortium
University of Pennsylvania
Linguistic Field(s):
Not Applicable
Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
|
|
Page Updated: 01-Oct-2012
|
|
About LINGUIST
|
Contact Us
While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed
on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.
|
|
