thoughts on source notation for a book

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RyanChristiansen
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thoughts on source notation for a book

Post by RyanChristiansen »

I'm currently writing a book about some professional football history. I have a lot of sources, and currently I'm using the Chicago style with superscript numbering, endnotes, and a list of references. This is great for the academic world, but I want my book to be appealing to a more general audience while still retaining the credibility that goes along with providing sources for my information.

I see that history books written for a general audience do not always include superscript numbering, for example, Michael MacCambridge's America's Game. Instead, his book has a "source notes" section at the end. The notes include:
  • the page numbers where the information appears in the book
    a short quote from the text or the name of a person
    a shortened reference style.
For example...

383 And it was clear: Paul Zimmerman, "Big D, as in Dynasty," SI, Feb. 8, 1993.

Have you ever been involved in publishing a book that uses this notation style instead of using superscript numbering in the main body of the text? I'm wanting to eliminate superscripts because I feel they are distracting for a general audience, ESPECIALLY when I want to write in a style so that the material reads more like a story instead of straightforward historical documentation.

Thoughts?
"Five seconds to go... A field goal could win it. Up in the air! Going deep! Tipped! Caught! Touchdown! The Vikings! They win it! Time has run out!" - Vikings 28, Browns 23, December 14, 1980, Metropolitan Stadium
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Ken Crippen
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Re: thoughts on source notation for a book

Post by Ken Crippen »

Usually the publisher has a style that they like for their books. I would look through author guidelines for various publishers that you want to use to see if there are similarities in how they want your manuscript sourced.
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RichardBak
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Re: thoughts on source notation for a book

Post by RichardBak »

I've done a bunch of books for all sorts of publishers, and while each publisher has their own preference, that doesn't mean they aren't flexible. If an author prefers a particular style of citing sources, he should certainly say so. Wayne State University Press has just published my book on the 1950s Lions (for which Ken Crippen kindly provided a blurb), and the Press left the decision re sourcing totally up to me. Their preferred style is in-line numerical citations (footnotes or end notes), but I've always felt that all those annoying little numbers sprinkled around the page mess up the narrative flow. I opted for the style of source notes you described (page number, brief quote, source) placed in a separate Source Notes section of the back matter:

184 "Schmidt told me": Parker, We Play to Win!, 76.
185 "day was cloudy": Lary interview.

I've noticed a lot of sports book publishers (e.g., Triumph, Sports Publishing) don't even require sourcing or even a bibliography. Hell, sometimes there isn't even an index. Libraries and other institutional buyers won't even consider adding a book to their collection if it's lacking an index, but a lot of readers really don't care one way or the other.

If you do shop your manuscript to university presses, you should know that most now have a general trade imprint in addition to their main line of academic titles. (My book, e.g., actually carries the Painted Turtle imprint of Wayne State Univ Press.) This allows the publisher to go "slumming," so to speak, w/o upsetting all those academic types who still believe university presses should adhere to their original mission of publishing monographs on 17th-century Russian poetry and the like. Usually there are separate acquisition editors for academic and general trade submissions, though a well-researched book on pro football can work just as well as a scholarly book as a general-interest book. Sometimes the only real difference is in how the citations appear.
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RyanChristiansen
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Re: thoughts on source notation for a book

Post by RyanChristiansen »

RichardBak wrote:A well-researched book on pro football can work just as well as a scholarly book as a general-interest book. Sometimes the only real difference is in how the citations appear.
Good insights. I've had one book, a creative work (a novel), published by a university press. As I expected, they didn't do much to promote my work.

I'm working on a book on pro football now, and I'm inclined to dispatch with citations altogether. Instead, I'm thinking about writing it as creative nonfiction. (My master's degree is in creative writing.) I want to really portray the players involved as fully realized human beings, and creative nonfiction will allow me to provide plausible details when those details can't be known. (My subjects were born over 100 years ago and some don't have any descendants.) Yes, I will need to walk that tightrope of being truthful while still being creative, but it will allow me to drop the shackles that come along with source notation. If I do pursue this, I would still include an extensive bibliography at the end of the book. I'm an English professor, so taking this approach would not crush my credibility as a researcher. What are your thoughts?
"Five seconds to go... A field goal could win it. Up in the air! Going deep! Tipped! Caught! Touchdown! The Vikings! They win it! Time has run out!" - Vikings 28, Browns 23, December 14, 1980, Metropolitan Stadium
RichardBak
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Re: thoughts on source notation for a book

Post by RichardBak »

I think for the book you're describing, creative nonfiction might be the way to go. Gives you plenty of latitude to build your characters. As long as a writer is up-front about his approach, readers don't care. They just want an informed, flowing narrative that's fun to read and leaves them with feeling they've learned a little something. If you're going to go that route, you might consider just doing a bibliographic essay instead of a straight bibliography. It can be just as comprehensive, but the essay form gives you a chance to tell everybody how you chose and weighed your sources, explain what holes there were in researching your subjects, why you did what you did, etc. Probably the ultimate example of what I'm suggesting is the bibliographic essay Ken Davis did for his Lindbergh biography, The Hero. His is almost too damned detailed. But it's a long, interesting read in itself. I just pulled it off my shelf. In a 528-page book, his essay is 81 pages! That's overkill (and probably a little bit of showing off), but a shorter version where you not only describe your sources, chapter by chapter, but also include some comments about your sleuthing, a sprinkling of observations and digressions that couldn't be worked into the main narrative, and acknowledgments of those people and institutions who helped you along the way, would satisfy publishers and readers alike, I would think.
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RyanChristiansen
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Re: thoughts on source notation for a book

Post by RyanChristiansen »

RichardBak wrote:I think for the book you're describing, creative nonfiction might be the way to go. Gives you plenty of latitude to build your characters. As long as a writer is up-front about his approach, readers don't care. They just want an informed, flowing narrative that's fun to read and leaves them with feeling they've learned a little something. If you're going to go that route, you might consider just doing a bibliographic essay instead of a straight bibliography.
That’s a great idea. The story about the process. Yes, a straight bibliography would look out of place, sort of a half measure without the in-text citations or endnotes.
"Five seconds to go... A field goal could win it. Up in the air! Going deep! Tipped! Caught! Touchdown! The Vikings! They win it! Time has run out!" - Vikings 28, Browns 23, December 14, 1980, Metropolitan Stadium
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