[bksvol-discuss] Re: Comments on Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

  • From: "EVAN REESE" <mentat3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:07:32 -0500

Actually, volunteers and members do get away with it.

You should have seen the copy of Dan Brown's Angels & Demons that I read that 
was added to the collection last March. 
This was not done by outsourcers. (I won't mention the names of the submitter 
and the proofreader since the book is gone now anyway.) I submitted a quality 
report on it and it was replaced, although I haven't looked at the replacement.

Among the most egregious problems were:
garbled headers at the tops of nearly all  pages
almost no chapter titles at the beginnings of chapters
the first word of each chapter--or at the change of scene, it was not easy to 
be sure because of the missing chapter titles--was garbled
random hard returns in the middles of paragraphs, often followed by the letter 
i.

One of the things that really bugged me, although it did not appear too many 
times, was that the initials LHC, which stands for Large Hadron Collider, were 
rendered as the word the.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list. I submitted the quality report 
several months ago and I don't have a copy of it. I'm sure that I've forgotten 
stuff I put in the report, and even that wasn't a page-by-page listing of all 
the errors.

Clearly, the submitter just threw this book up onto the check out page with 
little, if any, cleanup; and it was obvious that the proofreader didn't even 
look at it.

I'm not saying that outsourcers shouldn't be held to at least as high a 
standard as volunteers and members. Of course they should be. But it's not 
exactly fair to say the outsourcers are getting away with stuff that volunteers 
and members are not.

Evan

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: robert tweedy 
  To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 12:10 PM
  Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Comments on Impulse by Ellen Hopkins


  Yep they should be.
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: solsticesinger 
    To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
    Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 9:49 AM
    Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Comments on Impulse by Ellen Hopkins


    No. We certainly don't get away with it, and we don't get paid. So, if they 
do get paid, shouldn't their work be held to the same, if not higher, standards?

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: robert tweedy 
      To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
      Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 6:37 AM
      Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Comments on Impulse by Ellen Hopkins


      We don't get away with it.
        ----- Original Message ----- 
        From: solsticesinger 
        To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
        Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 11:25 PM
        Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Comments on Impulse by Ellen Hopkins


        It isn't harsh, but is very, very fair. It was my thought, as I read 
through the book. If they're being paid, why is such sloppiness permitted?
          ----- Original Message ----- 
          From: Christina 
          To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
          Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 6:33 PM
          Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Comments on Impulse by Ellen Hopkins


          I don't understand why they don't.
          They're not volunteers, right?  As far as I know, they get paid for 
their time and, if that's true, they should be held accountable for their work.
          I know that's harsh but I think it's also fair.
          Christina

            ----- Original Message ----- 
            From: EVAN REESE 
            To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
            Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 4:36 PM
            Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Comments on Impulse by Ellen Hopkins


            Nah, they don't read through their scans. I've mentioned here 
before that there was evidence to show that they didn't, and this just adds to 
it.

            Evan

              ----- Original Message ----- 
              From: solsticesinger 
              To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
              Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 3:58 PM
              Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Comments on Impulse by Ellen Hopkins


              I just finished reading Impulse by Ellen Hopkins, which was added 
to the collection by an outsourcing group in Africa. This is one of the worst 
outsourced scans I've seen. In fact, I wonder if anyone bothered to proof it at 
all.

              The book switched point of view often, and there was no 
indication of this in the scan. Therefore, it was impossible to know which 
character was speaking at any given time. In fact, due to the lack of headers, 
it was impossible to determine how many narrators even existed.

              I saw several very common scanning errors that could have been 
fixed, if only the book had been read through. "hail" for "hall" is an example.

              I really looked forward to reading this book, but was sorely 
disappointed by the scan. It really does need to be redone, IMO.

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