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We are constantly told that we live in the Information Age. “Everyone has a smart phone.” “Over twenty-five percent of Americans have college degrees.” “Over one-third of the African American community now lives in the Middle Class, with a high school or better

The post In the Information Age, why do Americans ignore facts during elections? appeared first on OUPblog.

A lot of you have probably already seen the Salon piece about the author whose book was panned by the New York Times.

The part that most interested me was how, after the fact, an editor began an email correspondence, not with the writer, but with his character. Talk about meta-fiction!

I thought it might be fun to make a real email address for Ben, though, and to let readers email him, especially if they had questions about the puzzles in the book. Ben is a kind of wayfaring pothead version of Will Shortz, and likes to make up riddles and puzzles here and there. He sees life in terms of games. Most of the riddles and puzzles are answered within the book, and none are crucial for the story. Still, thinking it would be amusing – a meta-game for readers – I went to Gmail and made Ben’s address and posted it on my website. I invited people to write him if they had questions about anything in the book.

In the six months the address was up on my site, one person wrote to Ben. It was my friend Hannah.

But when I logged in to Ben’s account on that Monday after the Maslin review, badly hung over, I found a new email awaiting me.

It was not from Hannah. It was from an editor at the New York Times.

The subject line was “Did you get hit on the head?”

Here it is: (Our exchange is published with his permission)

Dear Mr. Hanson,

Given the vagaries of fictional life, I understand that you might not be able to answer this question, which has come up after one of our readers read the review of “This Bright River” that we published. But – in the prologue, are you the person who is hit on the head?

-Ed Marks, Culture Desk


Read more here.

Do people who write non-fiction essays or memoirs, or who are oral storytellers, have the duty to report things accurately?

And where does the line lie? Or where do lies begin?

Everyone knows that fishing stories are often tall tales. But what about an episode of This American Life? This American Life has retracted an episode about Apple factories in China featuring storyteller Mike Daisey..

Turns out some of the most sensational aspects of his story were made up.

From The Business Insider:
"I'm not going to say that I didn't take a few shortcuts in my passion to be heard," Daisey tells Schmitz and Glass. "My mistake, the mistake I truly regret, is that I had it on your show as journalism, and it's not journalism. It's theater."

Daisey's interpreter Cathy also disputes two of the most dramatic moments in Daisey's story: that he met underage workers at Foxconn, and that a man with a mangled hand was injured at Foxconn making iPads (and that Daisey's iPad was the first one he ever saw in operation). Daisey says in his monologue:

He's never actually seen one on, this thing that took his hand. I turn it on, unlock the screen, and pass it to him. He takes it. The icons flare into view, and he strokes the screen with his ruined hand, and the icons slide back and forth. And he says something to Cathy, and Cathy says, "he says it's a kind of magic."

Cathy Lee tells Schmitz that nothing of the sort occurred.

I’m in the process of moving from New Hampshire to North Carolina, and things will be crazy around here until we get settled in. I’ll be running some oldie-but-goodie posts on the blog until I’m back to work. Enjoy!

In January, I wrote a post called I Just Got an Assignment. Holy Crap! Now What?, where I walk writers through what to do once you land an assignment, from negotiating deadlines to asking for the assignment specs from the editor.

So you got the assignment, you followed all the tips in my previous blog post, you wrote the article — and now you’re wondering what to do to wrap up the assignment. Here’s my advice:

Compile the Source List

Almost every editor will expect a source list so that the fact checker can contact your sources to check their quotes — or at the very least, to send them copies of the magazine if it’s not on the newsstands. You’ll need to include for each of your sources:

Name
Mailing address
E-mail address
Phone number

In addition, you’ll need to include sourcing information for every study you mention. For example, if you quoted from a study you found on PubMed.gov, you’ll need to include the URL.

Some writers send the source list as a separate document attached to the e-mail, but I prefer to just paste mine in after the end of the article. I title the section “SOURCES,” and if the magazine is not on the newsstands, after this heading I write, “Can you please send them copies of the magazine when it’s out? Thanks!” Editors have usually been happy to do this. (If the magazine is on the newsstands, sources can buy their own copy.)

Create an Annotated File

Your editor will let you know ahead of time if she expects an annotated article. I’ve had only one or two magazine clients that wanted this. If yours does, you’ll need to either use the footnoting feature in Microsoft Word or make up your own similar system to give backup for each fact you include in the article.

I like to create my source list, including expert source contact information and URLs of studies I cite, and give each source or study a number. Then, I go through the article and tag each fact with the number that corresponds to the source or study I got it from. For example, it might look something like this:

Vitamin C has been proven to whiten teeth [1], freshen breath [2], cure athlete’s foot [1], and promote healthy sleep [3].

SOURCES (this comes at the end of the article)

[1] Study “Vitamin C’s Effects on Athlete’s Foot and Tooth Whitening,” Journal of Medical Quackery, www.pubmed.gov/78932ny3891.

[2] Dr. Ima Dentist
[contact info]

[3] Study “Vitamin C and Sleep,” Sleep Disorders Research Journal, www.sleepdisordersresearch.org/vitaminC.

Spell Check It

Don’t rely on the spell check feature in your word processing program, which doesn’t know that you accidentally typed “you’re” instead of “your.” Go over it with your own eyes. Print it out if you have to; some people tend to miss mistakes if they read their articles on-screen.

Send It In

Once you’re sure your article is perfect (well, as perfect as it can get — we all make mistakes) and you have your source list done, you can send your article to the editor. I like to both attach the arti