Readers with page numbers?

[ShadowAuthor]

Originally Posted by RedHeadPeter

I would be surprised if any of the academic referencing systems (Harvard etc) have caught up with e-readers yet. The standard format is author, title, page number, publisher etc etc. So knowing the page number on which another person can find that information is important. If it comes out as a different page number, or non-existent, on different formats and different readers you have a problem.
Actually I think e-readers are useless for academic research - you need to flick backwards and forwards between text, index, notes all the time in ways which are easy with the physical book or journal but clumsy on current e-readers (at least on my Bebook)

Excellent points, Peter. Thanks. I think I will just relegate the K2 to 'pleasure' reading status, and all academic books will be printed from here on out. I guess I was looking for a justification that wasn't needed or actually there. I've got the K2 now, I might as well enjoy it.

[language gamer]

E-readers are not useless for academics, but citations can be very annoying. Epub files have static page numbers, which means they can actually be cited effectively. Other formats would be worse, but some version of chapter and paragraph numbers might work. Some citation systems have these kind of alternatives for internet sources, so you could cite it that way.

The main reason I like the electronic format the ability to access thousands of free books (in the epub format). I study literature, so there is enough free content that I've saved more cash on my e-reader than I've spent. In another discipline, that may be harder.

If you can't find enough content now to justify an e-reader, be patient. It's only going to get better.

[ciucca]

To get back on topic.

What ereaders have page numbers. I had a Kindle and returned it, because I did not like the fact it did not have page numbers. Maybe its my OCD but I like to know how many pages are left, when I am reading.

So far the Sony ereaders have page numbers. Any others? Does the Nook?

[surrealmind]

Excellent points, Peter. Thanks. I think I will just relegate the K2 to 'pleasure' reading status, and all academic books will be printed from here on out. I guess I was looking for a justification that wasn't needed or actually there. I've got the K2 now, I might as well enjoy it.

You needn't relegate it only to pleasure reading. True, you should never cite an ebook in an academic paper. The page number issue is a problem, yes, but ebooks are also not accessible in the same way that pbooks are. And what's more, ebooks are simply not considered scholarly enough for citation; not at this point anyway. It may be unfair, but that's the way it is.

That doesn't you can't use the ebook at all, however. When you're writing your paper, open up Kindle for PC and copy-and-paste the text you want to quote, but instead of citing page number, just use the format "(Author ###)" (for MLA). You could highlight it in yellow or bold it or whatever else you need to do to make it stand out later--but the "###" will be an easy search string. When you're done writing the paper, spend a couple hours at the library tracking down good scholarly editions of the books and find your page references in them. Annoying, yes, but you'll be able to check your Kindle quotations against a closely-edited academic version of the book, and what with find text features, you'll be able to zero-in on the page numbers pretty quickly.

[ShadowAuthor]

Originally Posted by surrealmind

You needn't relegate it only to pleasure reading. True, you should never cite an ebook in an academic paper. The page number issue is a problem, yes, but ebooks are also not accessible in the same way that pbooks are. And what's more, ebooks are simply not considered scholarly enough for citation; not at this point anyway. It may be unfair, but that's the way it is.

That doesn't you can't use the ebook at all, however. When you're writing your paper, open up Kindle for PC and copy-and-paste the text you want to quote, but instead of citing page number, just use the format "(Author ###)" (for MLA). You could highlight it in yellow or bold it or whatever else you need to do to make it stand out later--but the "###" will be an easy search string. When you're done writing the paper, spend a couple hours at the library tracking down good scholarly editions of the books and find your page references in them. Annoying, yes, but you'll be able to check your Kindle quotations against a closely-edited academic version of the book, and what with find text features, you'll be able to zero-in on the page numbers pretty quickly.

Excellent advice. Alas, I am a Mac user, so I need to wait for Amazon to give us Kindle for Mac before I can try that.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ShadowAuthor

Excellent advice. Alas, I am a Mac user, so I need to wait for Amazon to give us Kindle for Mac before I can try that.

I'm not an expert in the area, but I believe K4PC will run under an emulator on Mac if you want to go that way. Might be too much of a pain though.