The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 11, March 18, 2007, Article 28

SUGGESTIONS FOR E-SYLUM CONTRIBUTORS

Wayne Schroll writes: "A few simple things that have occurred to me over 
the months that may be helpful to your contributors."

[I'm aware of these problems and try to avoid them, but sometimes 
they slip thru regardless. Sorry! -Editor]

Wayne writes: "1) When someone refers to a book or article, just the 
author's last name or the name and topic are often insufficient for 
someone who wants to find the book. My pet peeve has always been the 
"fragmentary reference". The E-Sylum, in fact, is very good about 
references. There are other publications I read where I see references 
like "see Spink" about English coins or quoting Q. David Bowers in "his 
book". This sort of thing makes me apoplectic on a good day. I have 
been studying coins for a long time and if I am confused or frustrated, 
probably someone else is too. A partial reference is not always obvious, 
particularly if it is about an area one is unfamiliar with and wants to 
read about it. Books should be referred to (once in the article) by 
author name and full title.

[On item #1, I do try to expand to full author and title, but don't 
always get or take the time to do it. It's easy when the submitter 
is careful, but often they're not. You should see some of this stuff 
BEFORE I edit it... 

I realize that part of what makes contributing to The E-Sylum enjoyable 
is the ease of simply hitting the Reply button and firing away. So don't 
let writing complete references slow or stop you if you don't have time, 
but please do be more complete if time allows. -Editor]

"2) If a contributor is asking for assistance with a research topic they 
should specifically say what they are looking for and provide a specific 
way to contact them, if indeed that is what they want."

[On item #2, I'm sometimes hamstrung by the requester. If they don't 
want to publish their email address I will always forward notes to them, 
but don't always take the time to spell this out in the issue. In one 
case the submitter said he preferred snail mail to email, but he didn't 
give me his snail mail address. So I went with what I had. -Editor]

"3) For aesthetics: the word 'From' should be avoided as the first word 
in a sentence in column 1. Sometimes email programs prepend a ">" symbol 
before the "From" to indicate that which follows is a message being 
replied to. This is fine in an email thread, but looks goofy in a 
newsletter or similar article. It's something the programmers never 
planned on."

[On item #3, this sometimes happens accidentally when inserting line 
breaks. I do this manually, and by late Sunday evening I'm tired and 
don't pay close attention. I did learn not to do this in my own preface, 
but sometimes forget. -Editor]

"Again, thank you for your efforts on a very enjoyable newsletter. 
Nice work. I hope my comments are of benefit to someone."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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