[Foundation-l] Re: Sources and sourceability

Mon Dec 5 17:23:52 UTC 2005

Brian wrote:

> Danny originally brought this fact up because he is writing a 
> reference book as part of a series of books to be published. Every 
> single one of the statements he made in the book had to have a source. 
> He said it took several months for every one of his facts to be 
> checked against every single source. This is how it works in the world 
> of publishing. We have simply side-stepped this out of laziness, in my 
> opinion.

This may happen with some higher-profile and better-funded works, but 
I'm also an academic, and I'm quite certain that this isn't normal 
practice.  I know for a fact that MIT Press does not hire CS and 
Engineering experts to meticulously review every line of the books they 
publish, for example, and even with textbooks quality-control is often 
directed primarily by the author (this is part of why there are *always* 
lengthy lists of errata discovered within a week of a new textbook's 
release).  Even journal peer-review is often much more spot-checking 
than one might think, with the exception of a few very high-profile (and 
well-funded) journals like _Nature_ and _Science_.

-Mark