daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Hi,
I can just provide my personal history here. I appear in the credits of several popular reference works as everything from contributor to assistant editor-in-chief (a horrible title, I might add, but then again, so was the book). I have worked on these books for Simon and Shuster, Facts on File, Macmillan (before it was gobbled up by Simon and Shuster), Reader's Digest, Henry Holt, and Continuum. In each book, the facts were checked as Brian describes. In fact, I remember one senior editor at Simon and Shuster boasting about how they would pay grad students a certain amount of money for every mistake they found. They were eager to find errors. I now have a manuscript of a book that I wrote for Marshall Cavendish sitting on my desk. Every sentence was numbered and checked. I have been asked to help source the material. I will be happy to provide the email exchange.
I must add my similar experience there. I wrote several reports and studies for institutions and academic fora, I always have to add the maximum of elements to source it, and it's rarely enough.
I would enjoy using Wikipedia for my studies, but it's not possible as of today. I would love if it could evolve the right way.