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Archiver > APG > 2004-12 > 1102094621


From: "Mills" <>
Subject: RE: [APG] Citing Sources - Original, Derived, etc.
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 11:24:22 -0600
In-Reply-To: <004001c4d8d6$1c6ec940$6401a8c0@DICK>


Re, long citations, Dick P. wrote:

<For many years I have been working on a compilation of the descendants of
my
immigrant 5th great grandfather and his four sons who came with him in 1749

from what is now a part of Germany. I am acutely aware that proper
documentation is critical, but that part of the compilation is becoming the
"tale" (sic) that wags the dog.>

<Once I thought of entered the NGS writing contest with the story of
my 4th great and his children and grandchildren. Then I realized there was
10,000-word limit. At that moment the footnotes alone were *12,000 words* -
and growing!)

<What would you do?? "Textbook" notes - or "practical" notes?>


Dick, you raise a valid issue and there's no easy answer. On the one hand
(after judging that contest for nearly 20 years now), I'll bet that if you
entered it you could radically cull those 12,000 words of footnotes to
something much more "practical" in the same way that you would cull your
research to create an engrossing family account.

On the other hand, that culling process--for both texts and notes--is a
mammoth task.
As we've seen from past discussions, many genealogists feel that once data
is entered into their genealogy software program, they should not have to
spend a ton of hours editing the "report" (aka book) to make the text more
readable or to make the notes more appropriate to a finished product.

And on the third hand (this being such a hydra-headed issue, we can surely
have three hands <g>) many researchers prefer not to edit the "reports" that
come from their data management software because they *want* to publish
every last shred of everything they've entered.

The core issue is that we have to decide what it is we want to produce. If
we want a well-written family history, which means a significant revision of
the text to make it readable and a fair amount of work to reduce our
"working notes" down to what is truly significant for publication, then it
is well worth the effort, IMO. But if we want to produce a reference work
that contains every shred of everything, then it seems to me that this
"reference work" is obliged to produce notes that are just as thorough as
the "facts" we assert.

Of course, for your big tome on the Pences, you could take your 100,000
back-of-the-book endnotes and print them out in 5-point, triple-columned,
classified-ad style, on the premise that those who want the detail will be
willing to use a magnifying glass and all the cousins who are just looking
up themselves will ignore the notes anyway <g>.

Elizabeth

----------------------------------------
Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
*Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian*


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