On 5/24/08, Relata Refero refero.relata@gmail.com wrote:
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.
A good copy editor should be able to change a text without changing the meaning. In very contentious articles, it's unfortunate that close paraphrasing (to the point of copying word for word) or quoting is often necessary throughout the entire text. It means those articles often look like lists of quotations, with no narrative flow at all.
I do think an example or two would be helpful.
Sarah