On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 2:32 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/24/08, Relata Refero refero.relata@gmail.com wrote:
The rest of what you say isn't really an objection, merely a general statement about Meaning. The bottomline is that a close paraphrase is sometimes necessary, and when its done, it needs to be done with
reference
to the source, and should not be copy-edited without the copy-editor
also
reading and assimilating the source. The latter happens all the time.
Relato, do you have an example of someone making an otherwise good copy edit that distorts what a source said?
Several! But I'm not putting them on the mailing list. That would indeed have a chilling effect, and would overly personalise - and trivialise - the issue. In case someone doesn't wish to believe its a problem, I'm definitely not going to wrangle over email whether a random example I pick changed meaning sufficiently to be a good example.
The point remains: do you think that close paraphrases are sometimes necessary? If so, do you think that such paraphrases can be, ont the average, re-written without reference to the source so that they do not alter meaning? These are not questions that require specific examples.
Relat*a* refero.