I certainly didn't intend to criticize Bill Mixon's reviews. He does an excellent job and "calls them as he sees them." He would be remiss not to point out things that are less well done than we might expect and is eminently qualified to do so. If you want see nice layouts and experience good journalism, take a look at the AMCS Activities Newsletter as edited by Bill.
My comments were more intended to enlighten the general readership in the caving world who often haven't a clue about the realities of how many caving publications are actually done. Our expectations for the quality of a publication are related to the source and the personnel involved. For example, our expectations are high for National Geographic and higher for something from Cave Books than for the Texas Caver. ===Carl Kunath (Sorry, I've been out of town for a couple of weeks and am just now catching up with earlier e-mails, and sorry for repeating the previous portions of this thread but context is important in this case.) ----- Original Message ----- From: Gill Edigar To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 7:42 AM Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Book editing and proofreading All of that is perfectly true--as based on actual publications readily to hand. Still, it is completely fair for the reviewer to point out those shortcomings--and I would suggest expected as we should want an honest assessment. Just because a book is sloppily done does not mean that the reviewer (who is ultimately being challenged in this thread) must be equally sloppy in reviewing it. --Ediger On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:26 PM, Carl Kunath <[email protected]> wrote: Many caving publications are done with very low budgets. As a result, there is no staff of well-paid graphic artists and proofreaders standing by to take over when the manuscript and illustrations are plopped upon the publisher's desk. As a result, volunteer, non-professionals do the best they can with the time and resources available. Results vary depending on deadlines, level of interest, ability, and (perhaps most importantly) the personal standards of those involved. Fortunately for many authors/publishers, the caving community is not too picky about such things and many readers are satisfied with mediocre journalism, sloppy layout, muddy-looking illustrations, and slip-shod indexes. The production of a work of any significant size is a major undertaking and, when the end appears near, some things are pushed aside in the last minute fervor to "get the job done." Indexes are often casualties in such situations. As Pete has mentioned, the job of indexing is very important and offers a last opportunity to catch errors, particularly in spelling of proper names. A good index is a vital part of a book and deserves just as much care as any other portion. The indexes for 50 YEARS OF TEXAS CAVING (22 three-column pages) were meant to be as thorough as possible and are the result of many, many hours of labor by Katie Arens, Logan McNatt, Jerry Atkinson, and myself. Human indexing to the max! ===Carl Kunath ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 9:41 AM Subject: Re: Re: [Texascavers] Re: book review: Huautla Computer indexing is often nearly a joke. Human indexing, alas, is seldom done any more. T Sep 16, 2009 04:08:33 PM, [email protected] wrote: You can always do additional editing and checking, but I suspect in this case it was deemed more important to have the book out in time for the ICS. One way to catch the errors that Mark mentioned is to do an index. Particularly for a book like this, where there are a number of people and a number of places mentioned, an index is valuable for folks to find a particular name. And when you index such a volume you always end up with "almost duplicate" or similar spellings that can then be discovered and corrected. The Atlas of the Great Caves of the World is a good example where the index paid off big time because of the amount of "foreign" names that went well beyond the 128 character fonts available at the time. The solution was to design a special 256 character font with all the special accents, etc. Fortunately computer technology has come a long way since that 20 year old edition. I thought it was a great read and look forward to similar books by both Bill and others cavers. - Pete CaveBooks.com On Sep 16, 2009, at 1:14 PM, Mark Minton wrote: Charles Goldsmith said: >Bill, just my opinion on it, but I disagree on your critique. >It was probably edited too much, so no, it shouldn't have been edited more. I have to disagree about the editing, Charles. It _did_ need more, as Mixon said. Sure, it reads well and makes a great story, but there are things an editor should have caught. For example, the large room in San AgustÃn where Camp III was located is spelled at least three ways: Sala Grande de la Sierra Mazateca (p. 26), Sala Grande de las Sierra Mazateca (p. 109), and Sala Grande de las Sierra Mazatecas (p. 146). The first is correct. Swiss caver Philippe Rouiller's last name is also spelled three different ways on pages 193-4. Or how about on p. 201 where it says that a row of stalagmites hung on the ceiling? However the most egregious error is that the north arrow on all of the line maps in the chapters points the wrong way, although it is correct inside the front cover. That can be very confusing if one doesn't know the system and tries to make sense of some of the progress described in the book. There are also several minor factual errors, but those are mostly inconsequential and would not be detectable by the casual reader. Don't get me wrong, I like the book and found it to be fast reading. I too look forward to Steele's next book. But I hope it is better edited. Mark Minton
