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[bookishone]

Okay, I've had it. I know I've posted on these boards before about my problem with Chicago style, since you often have to page back through miles of tiny-print endnotes to find the one previous note that gives the crucial citation information for the book you want (cited in the later note only as "Smith, _Ten Theories_, p. 346."

But I'm struck by the number of recently published books without bibliographies (something that triggers the Chicago problem). Yes, this post is prompted by my frustration with two books I am trying to use at the moment. I imagine the dearth of bibliographies is because they make the book longer and more expensive. But how do you browse the author's sources, get a sense of his or her methodology and favored subtopics, gauge the depth of his or her primary research, stumble upon a great new source, etc. without a bibliography? Especially if the index is lousy, which they often are. And what better way to start a grad student off on a new research project than to tell them "check out the bibliography in X's book, it has everything you need to get you started"? (Yes, I also tell them to follow the footnote trail, but that's a little different).

So, I'm issuing a call to arms:

Scholars, unite! To the barricades! Demand bibliographies! Bibliographies for all! Give me bibliographies or give me death!

[trabb]

Scholars, unite! To the barricades! Demand bibliographies! Bibliographies for all! Give me bibliographies or give me death!

Indeed!  And you will have my support.  I shall not publish* with anyone who will not allow me a bibliography. 



* (after I get tenure)

[malcha]

Yes!  And, please, no MLA format either -- I want footnotes, real footnotes, as in notes at the foot of the page.

[aandsdean]

Yes!  And, please, no MLA format either -- I want footnotes, real footnotes, as in notes at the foot of the page.

Isn't it ironic that just at the time it became simple and easy to insert footnotes (word processing and desktop publishing programs) the MLA got rid of them?  And all of us over about 40 had developed all those useless line-counting, light-pencil-marking-at-the-bottom-margin skills for naught.

Of course, the MLA's speedy and timely action on this matter is typical in all sorts of ways.

[helpful]

And down with APA's silly insistence on eliminating first names. How the heck do you figure out which J. Smith a reference is referring to?

[magimax]

Why can't someone just combine all the best features of the various styles and make it Master Style of the Universe once and for all???  I hate footnotes, so I love APA style, but I hate not knowing the first name of an author, so I hate APA style.  I have a love-hate relationship with the only style I'm allowed to use in my field. 

[deleteplease]

Another pet peeve: the journals and presses that take some basic style (MLA, APA, Chicago) and then add about 50 pages of press-specific rules and variants (or worse, just have there own undocumented house styles). I'm still not sure whether I find trying to edit my work into all of these weird styles or having my work hopelessly garbled by editors trying to do it themselves is worse. (As it's off topic, I probably shouldn't go into my opinions of editors who run foreign language titles and quotations through spellcheck).

And, yes, a bibliography is a must! It's normally the first thing I read in a book.

[santommaso]

But how do you browse the author's sources, get a sense of his or her methodology and favored subtopics, gauge the depth of his or her primary research, stumble upon a great new source, etc. without a bibliography?

The answer is quite simple. Read the text of the book. You know, the printed part of writing that is not footnotes. It is easy to find. It's the stuff in the larger font. The author has written it for you! Gasp!

I assure you, if you read the text you will become acquainted with all of the things you are trying to intuit/divine out of the footnotes, and what apparently you often try to get out of bibliographies.

Your mistake is thinking that your footnote-voyeurism or bibliography-surfing is equivalent to reading the book. Your lament over having to read the book sounds like like the undergrad's complaint that the book wasn't summarized sufficiently on the back of the book.

[bookishone]

Hi santomaso,

I don't actually mean to suggest that I don't read the book; of course I do. But a bibliography is a tremendous aid to further research of an entirely different order from the book itself. A monograph without a bibliography has passed up the opportunity to create a useful shorthand of sources and methodology. Frankly, although I enjoy reading the books, I also enjoy reading the bibliographies. I discover references that might be passing and go unnoticed in the text. I find new (primary source) texts by favorite authors. And when I'm at the book exhibit of a major conference, a glance through the bibliographies of the hundreds of books on display helps me narrow down the books that might reward further attention and even be worth buying.

I hope also that you notice that I'm taking your point seriously, not mocking it and you in an echo of your ungenerous tone.

[seniorscholar]

I must say that when I'm reading a book manuscript for a press, the first thing I look at is the bibliography -- lets me know at once, for example, if this is a 6-year-old dissertation that hasn't been updated. And this is also true when I look at books on the publishers' exhibits at a convention: the bibliography shows me in five minutes whether the sources, methodology, etc. have anything I might be interested in reading, or if it's all based on a theoretical approach that I know is unappealing to me and uses almost no primary sources. One doesn't actually have time at a book exhibit to read much of a book -- but one does often go home with a short list of things to order for one's own library at the exhibit discount. Table of contents, first two pages of the introduction, bibliography: if the book hasn't grabbed me by then, I may remember to look at it in the library sometime after it's had a good review (in other words, about three years from now); if it has grabbed me I am likely to buy it next week.

And I too find that endnotes with no bibliography make me very angry. I don't like in-text citations, either, since they interrupt the flow of the prose, but a quick flip to the short endnote giving me the same information (author, page; or author, short title, page) plus a bibliography is certainly my preference. It also happens to be the form used in literary and historical studies by the university presses with which I have published.

[santommaso]

And I too find that endnotes with no bibliography make me very angry.

I hope also that you notice that I'm taking your point seriously, not mocking it and you in an echo of your ungenerous tone.

You guys are making me feel guilty for not having a bibliography.

Perhaps a way to force us to produce them is to start mention the lack of bibliographies in all of your future book.

[infopri]

Count me as another bibliography surfer.  Yes, I (usually) read the book or article, but I read the bibliography independently (sometimes before, sometimes after, depending on lots of things).  Fortunately, bibliographies are standard in my field.

I agree with magimax about APA, though.  While I'm generally fine with it, I want to see first names!!

[husqvarna]

The answer is quite simple. Read the text of the book. You know, the printed part of writing that is not footnotes. It is easy to find. It's the stuff in the larger font. The author has written it for you! Gasp!

I assure you, if you read the text you will become acquainted with all of the things you are trying to intuit/divine out of the footnotes, and what apparently you often try to get out of bibliographies.

Your mistake is thinking that your footnote-voyeurism or bibliography-surfing is equivalent to reading the book. Your lament over having to read the book sounds like like the undergrad's complaint that the book wasn't summarized sufficiently on the back of the book.

Oh dear, no need to be so snarky!  Perhaps I'm the only one who has this problem, but Everything Published in My Field of Study is simply too much to read.  Sometimes you just have to do some skimming and bibliography reading to get a sense of what's being said, because there's only so much that you have time to swallow whole.  I took this to be bookish one's purpose in reading the bibliography.

[santommaso]

Oh dear, no need to be so snarky!

Yes, I agree now. Too snarky. I apologize, Bookish_one. Was having a bad day. You are right.

[cranefly]

I'm with most of you on the biblio/footnotes thing, but exactly how does one approach their publisher and say, "I know you have a house style, but I want you to change it for me".
Maybe we should start an online collective petition and send it to all the publishers?