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Shipwrecked (and WWTT)
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From: Jonathan Hunt <jhunt24>
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 00:51:13
I think SHIPWRECKED has lots of great documentation, both in the author notes and in the text. What it's missing, though, is the link between the quoted material and the original source. That is to say, if I wanted to check a quote against its original source I would have no way of doing so. Take, for example, this bit from page 25- The captain of the ship made this entry in his logbook, Sunday, June 27, 1841: "Sent two boats to see if there was any turtle, found 5 poor distressed people on the isle, took them off, could not understand anything from them more than they were hungry."
Let's say I wanted to check this for accuracy, or let's say I wanted to read the rest of the captain's logbook. How could I find the logbook? Should I have to read every single source in the back?
I think WE WERE THERE, TOO! is more flagrant in this regard as the text is littered with quotations, with hardly any original sources listed. I do see SHIPWRECKED as stronger in the documentation area and hope that my original comment reflected that.
Contrast this sloppy documentation--and yes, it is sloppy because college undergraduates are not even allowed to submit papers with such glaring citation problems--with the endnotes which Bober chooses to use in COUNTDOWN which cite not only the bibliographic information, but specific page numbers. Or even the sidebars in THE COD'S TALE which often include primary sources and list only the book, author, and year.
I realize publishers may eschew numbered endnotes to make the design more appealing (and if this is the case, I'd love to hear them step up to the mike and explain these decisions). I still think there must be a creative way to lead readers from the text back to original sources--and I am particularly speaking here of quoted material--with a minimal amount of hassle.
My students and I both greatly admire SHIPWRECKED. I expect it to be a player in our mock Newbery discussion next month, and would not be surprised to see it make the real Newbery list, but after reading SLJ articles (June and July, I think) by former Sibert chair Susan Faust and current Sibert chair Nina Lindsay, I have to believe that the Sibert committee will carefully weigh this aspect of the book. I'm not necessarily saying that either SHIPWRECKED or WE WERE THERE, TOO! will (or should be) shut out of contention, but I do think its chances of winning the whole thing are jeopardized.
Jonathan
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Received on Thu 06 Dec 2001 12:51:13 AM CST
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 00:51:13
I think SHIPWRECKED has lots of great documentation, both in the author notes and in the text. What it's missing, though, is the link between the quoted material and the original source. That is to say, if I wanted to check a quote against its original source I would have no way of doing so. Take, for example, this bit from page 25- The captain of the ship made this entry in his logbook, Sunday, June 27, 1841: "Sent two boats to see if there was any turtle, found 5 poor distressed people on the isle, took them off, could not understand anything from them more than they were hungry."
Let's say I wanted to check this for accuracy, or let's say I wanted to read the rest of the captain's logbook. How could I find the logbook? Should I have to read every single source in the back?
I think WE WERE THERE, TOO! is more flagrant in this regard as the text is littered with quotations, with hardly any original sources listed. I do see SHIPWRECKED as stronger in the documentation area and hope that my original comment reflected that.
Contrast this sloppy documentation--and yes, it is sloppy because college undergraduates are not even allowed to submit papers with such glaring citation problems--with the endnotes which Bober chooses to use in COUNTDOWN which cite not only the bibliographic information, but specific page numbers. Or even the sidebars in THE COD'S TALE which often include primary sources and list only the book, author, and year.
I realize publishers may eschew numbered endnotes to make the design more appealing (and if this is the case, I'd love to hear them step up to the mike and explain these decisions). I still think there must be a creative way to lead readers from the text back to original sources--and I am particularly speaking here of quoted material--with a minimal amount of hassle.
My students and I both greatly admire SHIPWRECKED. I expect it to be a player in our mock Newbery discussion next month, and would not be surprised to see it make the real Newbery list, but after reading SLJ articles (June and July, I think) by former Sibert chair Susan Faust and current Sibert chair Nina Lindsay, I have to believe that the Sibert committee will carefully weigh this aspect of the book. I'm not necessarily saying that either SHIPWRECKED or WE WERE THERE, TOO! will (or should be) shut out of contention, but I do think its chances of winning the whole thing are jeopardized.
Jonathan
_________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
Received on Thu 06 Dec 2001 12:51:13 AM CST
