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Citations In Non-Fiction Writing — Yes? No?

When No Higher Power was released, the advertising summary led me to believe it would be dead center in my writing niche – living Christian faith in a secular world. As soon as I received it I dived in.

The content was everything I could have hoped for. The book is well-organized. The ideas are thoroughly developed. The writing flows smoothly. The vocabulary is excellent. The conclusions are logically deduced from the evidence presented. Only one thing is missing.

Citations.

My expectations were established by reading Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin and Crimes Against Liberty by David Limbaugh. No Higher Power is just as well written, but it provides no citations. When Levin and Limbaugh state that they have evidence for their points, they provide readers with the source documentation. Phyllis Schlafly does not.

I was extremely disappointed. No Higher Power is part of heated political debate during an election year. The people on both sides of this argument feel strongly. I spend a good deal of time in this debate myself. If I make a point for my position, I am usually challenged to prove myself. It isn’t enough for me to say what I believe. It isn’t enough for me to say what some public figures assert to be the truth. The only way to hold my own in this conversation is to have the facts.

I wrote to the author and the publicist and complained, more than once. The publicist told me that the editorial department was satisfied that the book was properly sourced. I made my argument for the citations and suggested they at least post them on the author website. Finally, I told them that I wanted to give the book a five-star review, but I could not do it, because of the lack of citations.

Within hours I received a note from Harry Crocker, the Vice President and Executive Editor of the publishing company. He included his phone number and his availability to talk and invited me to call. It was a delightful conversation, although I don’t think either of us achieved our first objective.

Mr. Crocker told me that the authors rejected citations at the beginning of the book project because they felt that their readers would not want to be bogged down with them. He explained to me something I was already becoming aware of: many time-sensitive, somewhat polemical books choose not to provide citations. This senior editor has worked with many projects, so I am satisfied that his experience explains his position, but it still surprised me that he and the authors thought people would find the notes annoying. I always appreciate notes, especially in controversial issues. I read them. I follow-up. I want to know if the author speaks truth.

My first question to you is, do you think that footnotes or endnotes are annoying in a non-fiction book?

I was already familiar with some of the issues in the book, and I could verify some quotations from my own research. After reading the book, searches on random points produced satisfactory evidence. Still, it was disturbing that statements alleging words or deeds of a sitting president were not cited fully.

Because of the level of verification I had already established on my own, I felt “reasonably” confident of the sourcing. That word mirrors Mr. Crocker’s assertions of his confidence in the work. Because of the editor’s gracious explanation of the process in which citations were rejected, I felt that they had not been frivolously left out. I thought the book was extremely well written and much more coherent than most of the rhetoric flying around this election season. I felt that readers would be well served by the material. I gave the book four stars.  

You can read my review at http://www.amazon.com/review/R2BRBH0GN7HZPU . 

Question: What do you think? If you write non-fiction about real people, what do you think your obligation is with regard to citing sources? To cite? Or not to cite? How would you decide? What would you have done in my place?

* Image credit: Anne Hellmond (Creative Commons)

Comments

  1. says

    Wow. I thought citing your sources was non-negotiable. I agree with you, Katherine. I’m burdened that the mindset in today’s world is that citations are bothersome to the reader. It seems, to me, that the author has an obligation to the reader to provide sources and the reader, then, has an obligation to themselves to use those sources to clarify thoughts or opinions.

    Thank you for writing this and sharing your story. Though I am saddened by the turn of events in this particular case, it does show me that things are not the way I remember or assume they are.

    • says

      It is hard for me to imagine why the authors thought readers would find notes burdensome. Charles mentions that he prefers endnotes to footnotes because footnotes clutter the page. I have mixed feelings about that, but I do think the pages look nicer if the notes are at the end. At the end or on the page, I don’t really care. I do want to know where the author obtained information that isn’t common knowledge.

  2. says

    Like Heidi mentioned below, I’m rather shocked by this one as well. Frankly, without citing sources in nonfiction work the opinions of the writer become gossip rather than stated fact.

    As a reader, I don’t like to have my pages bogged down at the bottom with footnotes on each page. I’d rather see a little number next to a word, phrase or quote, and then have the end notes section in the back of the book for reference, because I do like to see where things come from.

    Great article, by the way. You have a wonderful gift with words. 😉

    • says

      You point out the most important issue here. This particular book is highly subject to be treated as gossip unless the author can prove that the allegations are factual. I would not dare to write a book about a living president without having all my facts nailed down for both me and all my readers.

  3. says

    It’s always been a mystery to me, when reading fact-filled books, how there often are no citations. I know citations are a lot of work to create (especially after the fact)–in fact I hate having to create them–but if kept track of during the writing they can be numbered, then referenced in the back of the book. I get annoyed when I’m reading a passage in a book and want to know the source and there is no reference. Also, I’ve heard that librarians purchasing books for their shelves like books with indexes and liberal citations, because that leads readers to other books.

    Citations can be a bear to cite correctly and slow down the editing process, so I wonder if the lack of them is sometimes due to a rush to publication to meet deadlines. I wonder too if citations sometimes are viewed by publishers as full endorsements of those sources, and if Christian publishers worry about that.

    • says

      I am currently writing a non-fiction book with citations. I can testify that compared with the work of creating citations on a typewriter, creating them on a computer is a breeze. Maybe every writer should serve an internship on a typewriter before being permitted to write with a computer. Then the basics might not seem like such a big issue! 🙂

  4. says

    I think citations are extremely important in this type of book. People don’t have to look them up if they don’t care to, but at least the information is there if people want to know the source of the information. I think it also lends credibility to the work.

    • says

      As you point out, nobody is obligated to study the citations, but if the reader wants more information or simply validation that the evidence presented is the truth, it is extremely useful to have that little note.