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From: cje@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Chris Jarocha-Ernst (Meteora's chess partner))
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Need help with weirdo format for bib
Message-ID: <489@elbereth.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 22-Jul-87 10:23:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: elbereth.489
Posted: Wed Jul 22 10:23:03 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jul-87 04:14:42 EDT
References: <2808@phri.UUCP>
Organization: Anton Phibes School of Medicine
Lines: 62

In article <2808@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:

> 	I'm pissed!  I mean, *Jeeze*, why does every single goddamn
> publisher have to go invent a new and incompatible format for references?
> Researchers should spend their (expensive) time doing research, not wasting
> time fighting with their word processor to meet the picayune details of 67
> million different reference formats.  The people *reading* the paper aren't
> going to give a shit if there is a semicolon after the title or if the
> volume number is in bold instead of italics, or if you list trailing page
> numbers or not, why should the people writing it care!?  And if publishers
> think it is so goddamn important that this be done the way they want, why
> don't they pay their copy editors to fix up the details and let the authors
> spend their time doing important things like producing the data that the
> paper describes?  This is the real world, not junior high school.

In case you don't remember, that was a flame.

One might make a similar argument against researchers "wasting" their time
writing an article with correct grammar.  After all, an editor can always
correct it, right?

While Roy does have a point regarding incompatable reference formats, he
doesn't have *that* big a point.  Most journals in a field follow a reference
format agreed to by a professional association in that field, not one
determined by the whim of an editor or publisher.  The association has chosen
or developed that reference format because they feel it's the one that makes
the references easiest for their readers to understand (and therefore use,
which is the point of references).  So someone reading an article might very
well care if the volume number isn't in boldface, as it makes it that much
harder to find a particular issue of a journal if you can't see right away
what volume it's in.  (In other words, just because Roy can't see the sense in
it doesn't mean there *is* no sense in it.)

And regarding having copy editors toe the line on the references instead of
the authors:

1) The author knows the particulars on the reference, not the copy editor.
   If the author hasn't made it clear if a number is a volume or an issue
   number, how is the copy editor supposed to decide?  So we need a system,
   a "language", whereby an author can convey the necessary info in a clear
   manner to the editor -- a reference format.

2) Programs like bib were written to free the author from having to keep track
   of every tittle and jot of reference formats, plus reducing the amount of
   time (and thus money) spent on copy editing.  Let the dumb machine do the
   mechanical work like placing semicolons and converting to boldface.

If one user at Roy's site is submitting to this journal, presumably other
users will, too, over time.  It makes more sense (and saves more time) to
write a new reference format in the appropriate style for bib than to a)
have to modify some "close" format each time, or b) argue with someone about
why a journal wants things just so.

There are different reference formats for different purposes, just as there
are different programming languages for different purposes.  Flaming against
variety, especially when there are translator tools that permit that variety,
is pointless.  Flaming to the net, which has no control over what formats
journals choose, is even more pointless.
-- 
Chris Jarocha-Ernst
UUCP: {ames, cbosgd, harvard, moss, seismo}!rutgers!elbereth.rutgers.edu!cje
ARPA: JAROCHAERNST@ZODIAC.RUTGERS.EDU