libroraptor

libroraptor, 7 months ago

@wynkenhimself @bringolo @bookhistodons If there's reason to forgo abbreviations of Latin words, it may be best to quit Latin altogether. I get the impression that most people don't translate "e.g." to "exempli gratia" – hence the unfortunate interchangeability of "e.g." with "i.e.".

Then there's "ect". There's surely no way people are translating that to Latin.

Recto & verso: I prefer superscript because I find it easier to read – the letter doesn't get so jumbled in with the numeral.

libroraptor, 7 months ago

@wynkenhimself @JeffreyJDean @bookhistodons Opposite for me because cognitive deficit makes the visual processing harder without the extra cue.

Maybe we need to find some reading experts to run tests on people with reading disorders, this time using technical texts rather than common newspaper and pop fiction specimens.

libroraptor, 7 months ago

@wynkenhimself @JeffreyJDean @bookhistodons Imagine it in manuscript, having to call a palaeographer in to ask, "is this r or v?" 😜

libroraptor, 7 months ago

@wynkenhimself @JeffreyJDean @bookhistodons

I made a LaTeX macro for when I needed lots of them:
\newcommand{\fol}[2]
{
#1\textsuperscript{#2}
}

One could embellish that with e.g. smallcaps in the superscript, or adding "fol." to the notation.

In manuscript I'm fine because my r and v look nothing like each other. But had I been schooled in an italic-based hand rather than a roundhand, the outcome could be most unfortunate.

libroraptor, 7 months ago

@JeffreyJDean @wynkenhimself @bookhistodons it's true on screen, too, but you have to look quite hard to find those typefaces, and sometimes the software just overrides them anyway and gives you a shrunken one that attracts undue attention for being the wrong weight – same with faked smallcaps.

There are unicode blocks for superior and inferior glyphs.

libroraptor, 7 months ago

@JeffreyJDean @wynkenhimself @bookhistodons

Yes – Word is a blight on literacy.

As an editor now that I've left academia, I see that even the spelling checker and grammar checker have become "power features" that clients think not for them.

Microsoft has worked hard to teach people not to see those red and green squiggles – and hence blinded them to smaller details and all that we convey through them.

libroraptor, 8 months ago

@manuel_kamenzin @medievodons Albertus Magnus?

libroraptor, 9 months ago

@natalie @academicchatter @phdlife @phdstudents

I'm an editor. I advocate writing from your notes, not from your head. That way, seeing your notes tells you up-front how much material you have, and you'll gradually get to associate the note pile with the length of the article. (It depends a lot on the size of your handwriting.)

Plus, if your notes are rigorous, you'll have all your refs right there with them and will never have to hunt for the missing one ever again. That can save weeks!

libroraptor, 9 months ago

@natalie @academicchatter @phdlife @phdstudents

Who writes like this? I did when I was inside academia.

This is my pile of notes for a paper about kymographs in medical education from a few years ago.

You sort them into a narrative, then flip through them one by one, converting them into prose as you go. Easier than battling a blank screen.

One of my PhD advisors, John Heilbron, does similarly. And no one says that John's writing is bad.

libroraptor, 9 months ago

@curiousordinary @folklore Is there a particular custom of rubbing his front legs?

libroraptor, 9 months ago

@inquiline @academicchatter @ecologies academics get salaries, offices, promotions, computers, libraries, printers, stationery, and often admin assistants and research assistants, and sometimes peer writing critics and editors, for doing this sort of work – is there anything that could be done to help the artists, ghastly hybrids and other potential writers who don't have that resourcing? It might increase the response to your wonderfully open-minded invitation.