One unexpected aspect of digital publishing is the increasing misuse of links. Instead of explaining something, writers are increasingly turning to hyperlinks, saying, in other words, that I don’t need to explain this term – …
During several years of creating, editing, publishing, and revising dictionaries and encyclopedias, I produced guidance for my team of editors on what constitutes the perfect reference article. Subsequently, as a user, I continue to consult reference resources as part of the …
The reference hierarchy, from simple to advanced understanding
Wikipedia is where we go first to look something up: you use it when you know nothing about a subject. That’s why Google, until recently, always promoted a Wikipedia article to the top …
Reading Time: 4minutes “Partial view of Wikipedia’s category system from 2007. Arrows point from category to sub-category.”
I’ve written before about Wikipedia categories, using the example of a brand of toothpaste, and this post is an attempt to understand them a bit better. …
Not a day passes without someone suggesting a way to reduce
the inefficiency of the scholarly publication cycle. There is an interesting article in Scholarly Kitchen by Tim Vines, about Michael Eisen, the new Editor-in-Chief
of eLife, suggesting ideas for the …
Perhaps it is the innocence of Jimmy Whale, Wikipedia’s founder, or perhaps it is an innocence shared by all the Wikipedia editors. Either way, Wikipedia is surrounded by a sweet optimism that is at odds with the reality of the actual …
Editing Wikipedia appears to some (including me) to be an endless road – it goes on and on, and is never concluded. And that doesn’t mean it gets better – even when highly experienced Wikipedia editors are on the case. Here …
Reading Time: 3minutesHistropedia is a site that enables you to create timelines from Wikipedia entries. According to the two founders of Histropedia (a very klunky name, which makes me think of histrionics), it is “a new type of website that will transform the …
Reading Time: 3minutes(This post first appeared at www.consultmu.co.uk in June 2013)
Bertelsmann’s announcement of the closure of Brockhaus encyclopedias (June 2013) is indeed the end of an era. The Brockhaus encyclopedia style was fundamentally different to that of Britannica. While of similar size, …
