Discussion Details
| Title: | RE: Does editing matter? |
| Submitter: | Jim Fidelholtz |
| Description: | Hi, All,
This is in reply to the discussion topic in Linguist List 23.3795, "Does editing matter?". I think it is clear that editing *does* matter, at least to many of us (as long as APA-style 'initialization' is *not* used, but that's a different, though apparently still necessary, discussion). Bad editing simply detracts from the readability, and therefore usability, of the work. Having said that, reviews on LL are helpful in general. But I have noticed another aspect of them which I do not like at all. That is the *lack* of price information; as I recall, this was due to a conscious decision at LL some years ago, which I did not like even then, and it is even less acceptable to me currently. Such information is often useful or even critical in the decision to buy a book or not. 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). And the fact that prices are not necessarily stable is also not an argument -- one needs in any case to compare prices before buying, and there are so many books being published now (and journals) that at least many of us need easy winnowing information (like a base price of over X hundred dollars, for example) to decide what to buy with limited resources. Changing or variable prices are not an argument, since the date of the review gives us at least some point of comparison for the price at that point. Jim Editor's Note: 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. |
| Date Posted: | 12-Sep-2012 |
| LL Issue: | 23.3814 |
| Posted: | 12-Sep-2012 |
