TEXAS REFERENCE SOURCES PROJECT
TIPS FOR SECTION REVIEWERS
You are responsible for checking and evaluating the initial submission of the section editor. This involves proofreading the entries for mistakes or omissions and evaluating the content of the section for items which need to be added or for items which could be removed. Please ignore numbering sequences during your review: items will be renumbered in final editing.
Any corrections you make should be noted clearly. You might want to place your suggested corrections and additions in brackets [ ] and/or in BOLD type. If you have any additions to suggest for the list, insert them at the point you think they should appear.
In the course of your work:
Resources you will find useful are the text of the section from the prior edition of Texas Reference Sources, WorldCat, Books in Print, netLibrary, and the 11th ed. of General Reference Books (Balay).
Keep in mind, Texas Reference Sources is a selective bibliography supplementing the standard General Reference Books. We want to list only the most useful, most authoritative, and most important reference resources relating to Texas. We do not duplicate GRB unless an item is extremely important to the subject area. If an item is included from GRB, we include the GRB entry number in our record.
The GRB edition we are checking against is the 11th ed. by Balay. A new edition of the work as General Reference Sources is being compiled as we are working on our update. I will handle coordination of the two new editions during final editing of sections. You do not need to concern yourself with the new entries in progress. I have informed our subject editors to include items which are in Balay if they have concerns the item might possibly be eliminated and it is too important in the subject field to be ignored.
A few format and abbreviation changes have been made recently in the course of initial checking of sections by the general editor and applied to the original submissions before forwarding them on to you. A new abbreviations list and format guide is attached to this message to replace ones I may have sent some of you earlier.
References to netLibrary availability are to be indicated only with:
[note the "n" in "netlibrary" is lower case]. We are not going to list URLs for netLibrary books.
Publisher city locations in Texas do not add the state TX: state locations should be used for cities outside the state of Texas.
In several cases, different ISBN numbers appear for cloth, paperback and ebook versions of a title and prices may not be associated with all ISBNs. I prefer that we use the hyphenated form of the ISBN, but some sources have deleted the hyphens. Sample formats we are now using:
Descriptions are to be kept FACTUAL and NON-PARTISAN. Describe what is rather than what you would like it to be.
Be straightforward and direct in your writing. Avoid being long-winded. Get to the point. Note that complete sentences are not required (your grammar teacher will roll in her grave!) so long as the information presented is understandable. Direct active tenses are better than passive tenses: they are more forceful and save on the number of words necessary to say something.
Items which may be useful in more than one subject area generally will be listed only once with full information and this generally in the subject area most applicable. Cross references ("See" and "See also") may be used in subject areas to refer to an entry present elsewhere. The General Editor will reconcile these situations as they arise in editing.
You have a deadline. Plan your work accordingly. Don't wait to the last minute: the quality of your work will suffer. Remember, your name is going to be associated with this: everyone will know you did it.
Note that the section text will need to be submitted in IBM-compatible Word or WordPerfect using "Times New Roman" font and size 12 or in ASCII text.
Anything you want to retain from the 4th edition can be used (if reformatted) in the compilation; anything you think should be discarded, do so. Also remember, we are adding important electronic sources (web publications, websites, CDROMs, online databases), which have never been covered before.
1. Check for misspellings and missing or extraneous punctuation.
2. Check for correct use and form of abbreviations.
3. Check for correct application of format.
4. Check for missing information and try to track it down.
5. Check weblinks for connectability.
6. Check annotation for understandability and completeness (any missing information which would be useful to include)
7. Check for missing items which you think ought to be added (create entire entry for item).
8. Check for listed items which you think do warrant inclusion.
9. Check arrangement of section for logic and usefulness.
Also available: netLibrary
$19.95 ISBN 0-89096-446-7 (cloth); ISBN 0-89096-578-1 (paper)
$45.00 ISBN 0-936227-23-0 (cloth); $24.95 ISBN 0-936227-22-2 (paper)
ISBN 0-8109-1440-9 (cloth); $32.95 ISBN 0-8109-2330-0 (paper)
$22.95 ISBN 0890960992 (cloth); $19.95 ISBN 0890961050 (paper); ISBN 0-585-17355-9 (ebook)
$14.95 ISBN 1-55622-616-0 (paper); ISBN 0-585-26249-7 (ebook)
Copyright ©2007, Reference Round Table, TLA
Send comments and suggestions
to: Beth Thomsett-Scott,
bscott@library.unt.edu
Last Modified: March 2007