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Re: Source Note, Nonfiction, the GN perplex
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From: bookmarch_at_aol.com
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:31:50 -0400 (EDT)
Couple of thoughts:
On the GN naming problem -- I ran into this years ago when I edited Judd Wi nick's "Pedro and Me." We couldn't call it a "graphic novel" since it was t rue, and to call it a "graphic memoir" implied it was salacious or in some other way gritty and adult. Whenever we could we called it "graphic novel m emoir" which, while a mouthful, at least roughly defined both the format an d the subject.
On citations -- I see citations this way -- there is tons of information ou t there. The author finds a path through it, a way through that density of possible facts, stories, events, interpretations. A citation is like the bl aze a guide makes as he finds his way through a forest -- it is a sign, a m arker -- I passed by here, I went this way, you can too. And beyond that it is also a location finder -- "hey, when I passed here I could only stop to mark this one tree, but the whole area around here is interesting, you may want to come back and look around." The ideal way for citations to functio n as that trail-blazing function is on the web, because then you can immedi ately click through and -- in many cases -- read the source, or at least le arn much more about it. So we might think about having websites dedicated t o books -- not to replace backmatter but to echo and extend it -- to offer readers a quick way to make most use of those references. And of course the advantage of web citations is space is n ot an issue -- so of course you wo uld give the source for every quotation. I personally love flipping back an d forth from narrative to notes, and we should not get rid of print notes. But I can see real advantages to also placing them, and indeed expanding an d extending them, on dedicated websites.
Marc Aronson
Received on Tue 19 Oct 2010 05:31:50 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:31:50 -0400 (EDT)
Couple of thoughts:
On the GN naming problem -- I ran into this years ago when I edited Judd Wi nick's "Pedro and Me." We couldn't call it a "graphic novel" since it was t rue, and to call it a "graphic memoir" implied it was salacious or in some other way gritty and adult. Whenever we could we called it "graphic novel m emoir" which, while a mouthful, at least roughly defined both the format an d the subject.
On citations -- I see citations this way -- there is tons of information ou t there. The author finds a path through it, a way through that density of possible facts, stories, events, interpretations. A citation is like the bl aze a guide makes as he finds his way through a forest -- it is a sign, a m arker -- I passed by here, I went this way, you can too. And beyond that it is also a location finder -- "hey, when I passed here I could only stop to mark this one tree, but the whole area around here is interesting, you may want to come back and look around." The ideal way for citations to functio n as that trail-blazing function is on the web, because then you can immedi ately click through and -- in many cases -- read the source, or at least le arn much more about it. So we might think about having websites dedicated t o books -- not to replace backmatter but to echo and extend it -- to offer readers a quick way to make most use of those references. And of course the advantage of web citations is space is n ot an issue -- so of course you wo uld give the source for every quotation. I personally love flipping back an d forth from narrative to notes, and we should not get rid of print notes. But I can see real advantages to also placing them, and indeed expanding an d extending them, on dedicated websites.
Marc Aronson
Received on Tue 19 Oct 2010 05:31:50 PM CDT
