Comments on: The Political Economy of Bibliographies http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/ Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:56:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: tom hurka http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198314 tom hurka Wed, 30 May 2007 17:03:25 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198314 Seconding #27: I doubt that many journals care about citation style until the paper is accepted. (We certainly didn't at The Canadian Journal of Philosophy when I was an editor.) So house style doesn't usually reduce the flow of submissions. Seconding #27: I doubt that many journals care about citation style until the paper is accepted. (We certainly didn’t at The Canadian Journal of Philosophy when I was an editor.) So house style doesn’t usually reduce the flow of submissions.

]]> By: tom s. http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198292 tom s. Wed, 30 May 2007 13:43:17 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198292 31 - A cynic could argue that the Journal of Moral Philosophy has more reason than most to act as a considerate member of the academic community. 31 – A cynic could argue that the Journal of Moral Philosophy has more reason than most to act as a considerate member of the academic community.

]]> By: Tom Fuller http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198291 Tom Fuller Wed, 30 May 2007 13:34:37 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198291 This is recommended by a friend of mine who is a Prof (Computer Science) at University College of London. http://www.biblioscape.com/ This is recommended by a friend of mine who is a Prof (Computer Science) at University College of London.

http://www.biblioscape.com/

]]> By: links for 2007-05-30 at Jacob Christensen http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198287 links for 2007-05-30 at Jacob Christensen Wed, 30 May 2007 12:30:17 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198287 [...] Crooked Timber » » The Political Economy of Bibliographies I’ve been dealing with a major project which has moved from one publishing venue to another, and am now checking to make sure that all the authors have switched over to the new bibliographical format, with brackets in the right places, journal volume nu (tags: blogpost publishing academic) [...] [...] Crooked Timber » » The Political Economy of Bibliographies I’ve been dealing with a major project which has moved from one publishing venue to another, and am now checking to make sure that all the authors have switched over to the new bibliographical format, with brackets in the right places, journal volume nu (tags: blogpost publishing academic) [...]

]]> By: kyangadac http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198277 kyangadac Wed, 30 May 2007 11:19:38 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198277 16. <a href="http://thoughtcapital.wordpress.com/2007/05/29/footnotes-and-open-access/" rel="nofollow">Corey Thompson</a> has my vote. His argument that many footnotes are superfluous and overwritten is appealing and pertinent and open access through the use of Data Object Identifiers means that much of the interoperability issues raised have already been solved. As an undergraduate I'm still coping with my university's particular version of Oxford citation style which has required some tweaking to Endnote's version. Not to mention the 'every paragraph should have at least one reference' requirement. Yecch! (OK OK I'll do it, anything to pass!) 16. Corey Thompson has my vote. His argument that many footnotes are superfluous and overwritten is appealing and pertinent and open access through the use of Data Object Identifiers means that much of the interoperability issues raised have already been solved.

As an undergraduate I’m still coping with my university’s particular version of Oxford citation style which has required some tweaking to Endnote’s version. Not to mention the ‘every paragraph should have at least one reference’ requirement. Yecch! (OK OK I’ll do it, anything to pass!)

]]> By: Thom Brooks http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198276 Thom Brooks Wed, 30 May 2007 11:13:39 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198276 When I was asked what the house style should be for the Journal of Moral Philosophy, I simply sat down with the top philosophy journals and went for a style that agreed with most primarily to help standardize just this sort of thing. When I was asked what the house style should be for the Journal of Moral Philosophy, I simply sat down with the top philosophy journals and went for a style that agreed with most primarily to help standardize just this sort of thing.

]]> By: domwass http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198275 domwass Wed, 30 May 2007 11:07:27 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198275 @21: I would wait until Philipp releases biblatex version 0.7, because after that until version 1 there will be merely bugfixes and no fundamental changes. Having said that, I must admit that I already use it without problems. The approach is different to that of other BibTeX styles, but it's quite straightforward, though you have to adjust you BibTeX data slightly—just have a look at the excellent <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/macros/latex/exptl/biblatex/doc/biblatex.pdf" title="biblatex documentation (PDF)" rel="nofollow">documentation</a>. @21: I would wait until Philipp releases biblatex version 0.7, because after that until version 1 there will be merely bugfixes and no fundamental changes.
Having said that, I must admit that I already use it without problems. The approach is different to that of other BibTeX styles, but it’s quite straightforward, though you have to adjust you BibTeX data slightly—just have a look at the excellent documentation.

]]> By: Ian Gadd http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198272 Ian Gadd Wed, 30 May 2007 10:31:13 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198272 To respond to the question of 'why?', take a look at Robert J. Connors's two articles (available from JSTOR): ‘The Rhetoric of Citation Systems, Part I: The Development of Annotation Structures from the Renaissance to 1900’, <em>Rhetoric Review</em>, 17 (1999), pp. 6-48 and ‘The Rhetoric of Citation Systems, Part II: Competing Epistemic Values in Citation’, <em>Rhetoric Review</em>, 17 (1999), pp. 219-245 The latter article includes a discussion of the recent move towards parenthetical citations: <blockquote>Rhetorically, parenthetical citations, by their foregrounding of citation structure and placement of it within the body of the text, relegate issues of readability and prose style to tertiary importance. They represent a resolution to make scholarly prose a vehicle of purest instruction rather than of instruction and delight...The elective reading of footnotes is here replaced by the inescapable reading of parentheses, some of which may be long enough to seriously interrupt the stylistic flow of the prose and all of which force the reading process from content to reference issues willy-nilly...What seems to undergird the decisions of fields…to change over from note to parenthetical systems is an attitude toward cumulation of knowledge and supersession of outdated knowledge in a field...[Parenthetical systems] suggest an epistemological world in which new data are always accruing and cumulating, where mastery of previous work is the primary ethical duty of an author needs to be constantly proven.</blockquote> Who says bibliographical style can't be political? As an aside, I worked for a while at the <em>Oxford DNB</em> which developed one of the most elegant and minimal citational system I have seen -- as you'd expect from a work whose sheer size meant that including even the most simple of extraneous information could add pages to the finished volumes... To respond to the question of ‘why?’, take a look at Robert J. Connors’s two articles (available from JSTOR):

‘The Rhetoric of Citation Systems, Part I: The Development of Annotation Structures from the Renaissance to 1900’, Rhetoric Review, 17 (1999), pp. 6-48

and

‘The Rhetoric of Citation Systems, Part II: Competing Epistemic Values in Citation’, Rhetoric Review, 17 (1999), pp. 219-245

The latter article includes a discussion of the recent move towards parenthetical citations:

Rhetorically, parenthetical citations, by their foregrounding of citation structure and placement of it within the body of the text, relegate issues of readability and prose style to tertiary importance. They represent a resolution to make scholarly prose a vehicle of purest instruction rather than of instruction and delight…The elective reading of footnotes is here replaced by the inescapable reading of parentheses, some of which may be long enough to seriously interrupt the stylistic flow of the prose and all of which force the reading process from content to reference issues willy-nilly…What seems to undergird the decisions of fields…to change over from note to parenthetical systems is an attitude toward cumulation of knowledge and supersession of outdated knowledge in a field…[Parenthetical systems] suggest an epistemological world in which new data are always accruing and cumulating, where mastery of previous work is the primary ethical duty of an author needs to be constantly proven.

Who says bibliographical style can’t be political?

As an aside, I worked for a while at the Oxford DNB which developed one of the most elegant and minimal citational system I have seen—as you’d expect from a work whose sheer size meant that including even the most simple of extraneous information could add pages to the finished volumes…

]]> By: bernard mcginley http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198267 bernard mcginley Wed, 30 May 2007 09:19:18 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198267 What most irritates me bibliographically is the spurious accuracy of stating the place of publication of a modern book, as if one were (say) anatomising influences on Giordano Bruno: so (e.g.) (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007). But list a periodical called Meridian (for an article by D H Lawrence, c.1924) and there's no hint about which continent to start looking in. bm What most irritates me bibliographically is the spurious accuracy of stating the place of publication of a modern book, as if one were (say) anatomising influences on Giordano Bruno: so (e.g.) (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007). But list a periodical called Meridian (for an article by D H Lawrence, c.1924) and there’s no hint about which continent to start looking in.

bm

]]> By: William Sjostrom http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198264 William Sjostrom Wed, 30 May 2007 08:41:47 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198264 As an economist, I am baffled by this discussion. I have shopped papers around without ever bothering to worry about reformatting the bibliography. No journal has ever showed any interest in the details of formatting until the paper is accepted. This has even been the case switching from journals that use reference lists to those that shove everything into those evil op cit footnotes. As an economist, I am baffled by this discussion. I have shopped papers around without ever bothering to worry about reformatting the bibliography. No journal has ever showed any interest in the details of formatting until the paper is accepted. This has even been the case switching from journals that use reference lists to those that shove everything into those evil op cit footnotes.

]]> By: magistra http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198259 magistra Wed, 30 May 2007 07:13:47 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198259 Using reference software helps, but you still end up doing a lot of manual correction even after devising an output style. Partly it's because reference software tends to be developed for science, which has relatively few types of material. My version of Endnote (admittedly an old one) has problems coping with the formating of modern editions of medieval texts, where you need an author and an editor field. But some humanities journals are also staggeringly unhelpful in their formats. Probably the worst are those which require volume numbers to be in Roman numerals: no ordinary piece of software is going to be able to cope with that. Using reference software helps, but you still end up doing a lot of manual correction even after devising an output style. Partly it’s because reference software tends to be developed for science, which has relatively few types of material. My version of Endnote (admittedly an old one) has problems coping with the formating of modern editions of medieval texts, where you need an author and an editor field. But some humanities journals are also staggeringly unhelpful in their formats. Probably the worst are those which require volume numbers to be in Roman numerals: no ordinary piece of software is going to be able to cope with that.

]]> By: Jo Wolff http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198253 Jo Wolff Wed, 30 May 2007 06:40:58 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198253 In my few years as editor of the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society I inherited a practice where there was no house style: as long as each paper was internally consistent in its methods, we didn't worry about consistency between papers. Even so, I probably spent the equivalent of a whole working week each year editing footnotes and bibliographies - mostly removing commas placed before brackets. On the whole US authors were very good, needing little correction, while UK authors were terrible, not having been taught in graduate school how to format their footnotes, and not taking the trouble actually to look at a published article to see how it should be done, no doubt imagining somehow that the journal would sort it all out. Perhaps things have changed now, but even with our relaxed policy correcting footnotes was a miserable way of spending my evenings. In my few years as editor of the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society I inherited a practice where there was no house style: as long as each paper was internally consistent in its methods, we didn’t worry about consistency between papers. Even so, I probably spent the equivalent of a whole working week each year editing footnotes and bibliographies – mostly removing commas placed before brackets. On the whole US authors were very good, needing little correction, while UK authors were terrible, not having been taught in graduate school how to format their footnotes, and not taking the trouble actually to look at a published article to see how it should be done, no doubt imagining somehow that the journal would sort it all out. Perhaps things have changed now, but even with our relaxed policy correcting footnotes was a miserable way of spending my evenings.

]]> By: nick s http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198245 nick s Wed, 30 May 2007 04:36:07 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198245 <i>I think most of these problems will disappear as the software becomes better.</i> There will be jam and friction-free bibliography management for the humanities tomorrow. I think the issue may be resolved if journals take the leap and provide their bibliographies online in adaptable digital formats. But that still leaves the problem of in-text references or footnotes (see CT <i>passim</i>). Semi-OT: any tips on migrating from jurabib to biblatex, Kieran? I think most of these problems will disappear as the software becomes better.

There will be jam and friction-free bibliography management for the humanities tomorrow.

I think the issue may be resolved if journals take the leap and provide their bibliographies online in adaptable digital formats. But that still leaves the problem of in-text references or footnotes (see CT passim).

Semi-OT: any tips on migrating from jurabib to biblatex, Kieran?

]]> By: Bill Gardner http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198243 Bill Gardner Wed, 30 May 2007 04:04:29 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198243 "When these conditions don’t hold, then you just spend a lot of time figuring how how to make LaTeX + BibTeX do what’s required." Yeah, as in the primitive APA LaTeX styles. I'm not sure why more progress wasn't made here. “When these conditions don’t hold, then you just spend a lot of time figuring how how to make LaTeX + BibTeX do what’s required.”

Yeah, as in the primitive APA LaTeX styles. I’m not sure why more progress wasn’t made here.

]]> By: Kieran Healy http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/comment-page-1/#comment-198238 Kieran Healy Wed, 30 May 2007 02:57:36 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/29/the-political-economy-of-bibliographies/#comment-198238 21: There are some quite powerful solutions, but the devil is in the details. The new holy grail in this department is Philipp Lehman's Biblatex. When I was writing my book it was Jurabib. 21: There are some quite powerful solutions, but the devil is in the details. The new holy grail in this department is Philipp Lehman’s Biblatex. When I was writing my book it was Jurabib.

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