Re: Penn State press: question about Chaucerian version dangers

[Pippa Smart <pippa.smart@googlemail.com>]

I am reminded of a case many years ago about a book on family
planning when the statement "the most safe period to have sex if
you do not want to conceive is the middle of the cycle"  led to
several pregnant women trying to sue the publisher and author -
the sentence should have read "the most UNsafe period to have sex
if you do not want to conceive is the middle of the cycle"

Whilst a similar error in humanities may not lead to an unwanted
pregnancy, it may well lead to a time-wasting line of study, so I
would be wary of being so dismissive of the need for accuracy
outside the sciences.

Whilst the VoR may not be perfect, it is (in theory) the one that
the author/publisher/etc. have "signed-off" as ready to publish
(i.e. to be made public), and should be the one used as the
groundwork for the future of academic/scientific development.

Pippa Smart
Research Communication and Publishing Consultant
PSP Consulting
email: pippa.smart@gmail.com
Web: www.pspconsulting.org

On 1 February 2010 03:43, Heather Morrison <hgmorris@sfu.ca> wrote:
> Sandy Thatcher wrote:
>
> Maybe this would be acceptable if all one were doing was
> discussing the basic ideas conveyed in an article and citing the
> VoR as the source, but it would be dangerous to rely on the
> postprint solely and quote from it since the final editing may
> well have caught errors and made other changes in the
> peer-reviewed draft.
>
> Question for Penn State press:
>
> Looking at the list of Penn State journals, I am puzzled about
> what exactly the dangers would be of reading or citing a
> postprint. For example, what would be the danger, exactly, of
> relying on a postprint of an article from Chaucer Review?
>
> Misinterpreting Chaucer, perhaps?
>
> Sandy Thatcher's post:
> http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/1001/msg00121.html
>
> Heather Morrison, MLIS
> The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com