Re: Correction, I hope, of M/C URL

John Cowan wrote:
>
> Sally Caves scripsit:
>
> > Why would that be any different for a print-journal, John?
>
> It wouldn't.  My point is just that the notorious inelasticity of
> paper isn't the only factor inducing journals, print or electronic,
> from severely limiting the length of contributions.
I'm still not sure of your point.  Just for clarification, the journal
didn't ask me to shorten the article.  Before I sent it to them, I
looked at sample articles, and I saw that all of them were about
2500 words.  So I cut the article myself down to that length.  In
fact, it's a little longer than most... I got seven bytes instead of
six. <G>  What the editors wanted me to do was *add* a paragraph about
the nature of "audience."  So I don't really think that they were
worried about the "boredom" factor, John, or whether it was too long.
They were openly concerned how an article about conlanging would fit
in with articles about TV violence.

It is true, though, as others have suggested, that the heft and weight
of a book reassures us.  We have a sense of how much further there is
to read.  We have it in our hands.  This will be the biggest obstacle
to overcome if the internet is ever going to be a major publisher.

Sally
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SALLY CAVES
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html (T. homepage)
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Niffodyr tweluenrem lis teuim an.
"The gods have retractible claws."
                                from _The Gospel of Bastet_
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