Quote:
Originally Posted by BMaloney
Hello there. I am interested in this conversation because I, too, use my Sony (PRS-650) to read academic material, highlight portions of texts and cite references.
SeaBookGuy covers all the basics: if your file is a PDF, then the page numbers on the printed copy will be preserved.
But, if I may be so forward, how do you plan on "replacing" the paper editions of your books and relying entirely on e-books, varlokkur? Will you personally be digitizing your entire printed library? If so, I'd be curious to know how to do that.
Or did you mean that you will be relying on e-books from now on?
I only ask this because, it seems to me, the whole digital era has come to challenge the idea of exact page references. A "page" is a paper medium for printed communication. It is a relative measure. Books that are published directly in digital form, for example, have no need of page numbers: they are strings of text only.
I guess what I'm suggesting is that, yes, one should cite an exact page reference when possible. But, also, it might be time that academics stop slaving over such miniscule and menial tasks as collating page references. People can, after all, just search for the key word now...
Just a thought. Thanks for listening!  |
This is a brilliant observation. There has been a lot of debate about the need of page numbers and whether they are relevant. I personally like page numbers when I'm reading, though I don't mind when they change due to font change. I like the "160 of 444" scheme much more than "position 44167". I think people are used to page numbers.
You are the first person I've seen recommend eliminating page numbers in reference notes, and I think you are absolutely right. We live in a key word society. I was researching coffee drinking the other day and was able to search for "coffee" and find every use of the word in 10 novels. It took me about 5 minutes. How hard would it be to list a few key words in a footnote/endnote? This makes sense not only for ebooks, but the fact that in education new editions come out yearly now and we reference so much information on the web.