By Edward Nawotka
When you’re in school you’re constantly reminded to proofread your papers before submitting them to your professors. Unfortunately, time crunched students rarely take the time. Who can blame them, with computers and auto-correct promising to catch and fix your mistakes? It’s a bad habit born of convenience.
Sadly, this problem has also taken root in book publishing, where digitization has made publishing at the push of a button possible. The resulting mistakes — whether due to inattention or inaccurate OCR software — have left many readers frustrated with the number of errors that have slipped through.
And it’s not just book publishing that has the problem: the June 5 edition of the Wall Street Journal had a glaring error in the deck of its front page headline, which read “U.S. Adds Just 54,0000 Positions…” A misplaced comma in a financial newspaper?! That has potential for disaster if it was in the context of, say, a stock price.
So tell us, has digitization exacerbated the problem of errors in books? Is it mere carelessness? A combination of both? Or perhaps readers, who demand that books be produced ever faster and sold ever more cheaply, are to blame?
Has Digitization Increased Errors in Books?
- BOTH publishers and computers to blame (51%, 83 Votes)
- NO, it is only the fault of overstretched and/or careless publishers (32%, 52 Votes)
- YES, digitization is largely responsible (10%, 17 Votes)
- NO, it is the fault of readers who demand cheaper and faster books (7%, 10 Votes)
Total Voters: 162
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13 Comments
“ever more faster”? Oh dear!
Errors occur largely in part because editors, who are generally non-technical people, don’t devote time or energy to understanding what they’re producing and how it’s done. They often have a wishful, magical view of the ebook-making process that’s rooted somewhere in a fear of computers. In addition, where rapid digitisation of hundreds of books at once is necessary, large contracts are won by the lowest bidder and undertaken by a pool of cheap computer-operator labour. Until this year, the business case for taking time over individual, title-level ebook production hasn’t been there.
As for your poll, to blame ‘computers’ for errors in books is like blaming beans for E. coli poisoning, or cars for traffic accidents.
“more faster” – I hope this was an illustration of your point.
I think the issue runs deeper than just the low quality of e-books or limited time for editors. I glance at Twitter once or twice a day and it amazes me how there are some editors on there who are Tweeting every couple of minutes. Whenever a thought enters their heads, they spout it off in 140 characters or less. Thanks to this new digital age, what we currently lack in our society is focus. If we now all have attention spans of 2.7 seconds, how are we going to proof a book correctly? Of course, if readers have the same attention span, we won’t have to worry about selling books anymore.
I’m not saying I’m above it — I’m just as pushed as anyone. “Ever more faster” has become “ever faster.” Appreciated.
@Arthur Atwell — or guns for killing people? The tools are enabling.
@rafauskiv
There are good editors, that convergence ebook, still surrounded by great professionals that guarantee good ebooks without errors.
Rules:
Good editor + bad conversion service: frustration and poor results.
Bad editor + bad conversion service: Poor product and short future
Good editor + good conversion service: Options and future business.
Bad Editor + good Conversion Service: short time collaboration or hard and expensive learning.
You forget the crucial correct answer to your multiple choice question: All of the above PLUS the hidden trick demographic of morons making up most of the “literate” population: poorly educated people who read the books, the papers, and the blogs, and can’t be bothered to remember the difference between ‘its’ and ‘it’s’ or construct a non-ambiguous sentence, know one when they see one, or understand why it matters, and who drive the economy which simultaneously serves them and makes them stupider by the minute. [And I know some truly brilliant people--scientists, writers, every sort--who, bless them, still can't seem to grasp the the difference between "it's" and "its," but those are few and far between. Most people are just trained to not think about words before they use them.]
I didn’t participate in the poll because there was no bullet to check for the catastrophic decline of basic education in the U.S. All those other issues play a part, but the simple fact is, Americans are no longer educated in their own language. Ann Patty decries that writers and editors don’t know the difference between the nominative and objective case. I would wager that, unless they’re over a certain age (I am), they don’t know even know what that means. I take exception to Em Dashing’s comment that people are morons. Some are, of course, but for most, I think the schools have let them down.
This is what happens when publishers decide, “Copy editors? Who needs them?”
Exactly, Geri! Digitizing is a great tool in the right hands, but it’s no substitute for editing and proofreading. A hearty raspberry to all who try to use it as such.
I agree with Rafael.
I don’t think so . I work both systems, paper and digital contents.
But digital contents allow us to correct the errors much faster, just updating them and this is a huge advantadge. No need to wait for the re-printing !