February 11, 2005
every reason stated is garbage...
Steve Weinberg has an article in the Baltimore Sun on the lack of notes and indexes in certain non-fiction books...
...Authors such as Woodward, and, by extension, editors such as Mayhew and publishers such as Simon & Schuster, offer all sorts of reasons for failing to provide source notes: They clutter a book. Readers never look at them anyway. Readers trust us. The sources are too sensitive to be identified. Adding extra pages drives up book prices.
This is not an exhaustive list, but it conveys the tenor of the discussion. The point is that every reason stated to me over 35 years of discussion is garbage.
If readers dislike such "clutter," they can skip looking at the sources section. It seems like a common-sense conclusion that curious readers are inclined to trust journalists whose reporting is transparent more than they trust those whose reporting is veiled...[thanks to Amy Ridenour]
One of the dirty secrets of the book world is that even when books have indexes, they are usually feeble things. You probably imagine indexes being compiled with minute exactitude by monkish scholars with long white beards and lots of time. But my understanding is that they are actually done by low-paid hacks who have no interest in the book or subject.
Posted by John Weidner at February 11, 2005 12:44 PMThe thing that bugs me is the confusion between footnotes and endnotes. Ann Coulter, for instance, had not one footnote, but a bunch of endnotes...
The difference is placement. Footnotes go at the bottom (Or “foot”) of the page, while Endnotes go to the end of the book. Which to use is a matter of style, but it always bothers me to see argument hidden away in endnotes. The only thing (in my opinion) that endnotes should be there for is reference. If you have an amusing anecdote, stick it on the page where it is easy to read!
Can't endnotes also be put at the end of the chapter? I've read a lot of books that use that technique.
On a side note, one of my favorite scifi authors, Jack Vance, uses a lot of endnotes and footnotes in his novels (using made-up quotes from imaginary poets, writers, and scholars). I love that sort of thing.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at February 12, 2005 12:04 PMIndices are hard. I hang out with a bunch of technical writers and getting the indices correct is an enormous effort. I suspect the lack is far more from laziness than any other reason.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at February 12, 2005 08:48 PMI am not sure what they are called when they are on the chapter ending, rather than the book ending. But sticking commentary where the reader can easily find it should be the goal of good writing...
I wonder how computers change the ease of indexing. It should be easy enough to create a .pdf of a book and use the “find” feature...
Posted by: Andrew Cory at February 13, 2005 01:08 PMDo indexers always care about the documents they work on? I doubt it. I remember the story of a 1035-page reference manual with a fine-print index entry that read "Birds, for the: pp. 1 - 1035".
Posted by: Prof. Willard at February 13, 2005 09:23 PM
