Popular Science Scoring Categories

We don’t currently have a set of criteria to use when
grading Popular Science novels. However, one of our
recent requests is for one
such book
, specifically Godël, Escher,
Bach
. The categories we’re considering for
reviews right now are “originality,” “clarity,”
“structure,” “completeness,” “editing,”
“presentation” (ie. are there pretty pictures?), and
“overall.” Since it’ll likely take me some time to
get through this tome, we might as well give our
readers lots of time to be heard, and we’ll see if we
can reach some sort of consensus.

13 replies on “Popular Science Scoring Categories”

  1. hi
    Of the points mentioned above as regards the vision for a global market or a larger market I feel as a salesman myself for a small organization it is all a question of survival and making the most of today. Small businesses don’t have the luxury of long duration for their ROI. Circulation of money is the key or the life blood for survival.

    aff dan
    http://www.marketingtops.net

    • Re: hi

      Of the points mentioned above as regards the vision for a global market or a larger market I feel as a salesman myself for a small organization it is all a question of survival and making the most of today. Small businesses don’t have the luxury of long duration for their ROI. Circulation of money is the key or the life blood for survival.

      aff dan
      http://www.marketingtops.com

      • Re: hi
        And you must be one heck of a successful salesperson if you have to advertise by spamming an SF/Fantasy site!

  2. spammit
    Every time I think I’m safe to leave the bureau42.com code alone, something comes along. This time, it’s robo-trolls.

  3. Questions
    Please define “Popular science novel”.

    And why isn’t legal to torture and kill spammers?

    • Re: Questions

      Please define “Popular science novel”.

      I believe he means “Popular science book,” a book which tries to explain and popularize actual scientific concepts. Think much of Sagan’s work.

      • Re: Questions

        Please define “Popular science novel”.

        I believe he means “Popular science book,” a book which
        tries to explain and popularize actual scientific concepts. Think much of
        Sagan’s work.

        One entry found for haute vulgarisation.

        Main Entry: haute vul·ga·ri·sa·tion
        Pronunciation: Ot-v[UE]l-g[a’]-rE-zä-syOn
        Usage: foreign term
        Etymology: French
        : high popularization : effective presentation of a difficult subject to a
        general audience

        I thought maybe that a certain magazine was branching out ;- )

        Well, not calling it a novel would be a good first step. And I don’t see
        what “structure” is, or how its different from editing. Also, I’m not sure
        how did would work, but I find that some of these works tend to
        be…patronising, talking down to the audience. but that would be a
        negative rating, so I dunno.

        • Re: Questions

          Well, not calling it a novel would be a good first step.
          And I don’t see
          what “structure” is, or how its different from editing.
          Also, I’m not sure
          how did would work, but I find that some of these works
          tend to
          be…patronising, talking down to the audience. but that
          would be a
          negative rating, so I dunno.

          I didn’t realize I had called them novels until I read
          this thread. I intended to say “book.” As for
          “structure,” that would be the arrangement of the ideas,
          be they chronological, or be they rearranged for more
          comprehensability. “Editing” would deal with whether or
          not this plan worked, as well as typos, reference checking
          and the like.

          If you have any further questions, concerns, or
          suggestions, post them. That’s what this whole article is
          about. :)

        • Re: Questions

          Please define “Popular science novel”.

          I believe he means “Popular science book,” a book which
          tries to explain and popularize actual scientific concepts. Think much of
          Sagan’s work.

          One entry found for haute vulgarisation.

          Main Entry: haute vul·ga·ri·sa·tion
          Pronunciation: Ot-v[UE]l-g[a’]-rE-zä-syOn
          Usage: foreign term
          Etymology: French
          : high popularization : effective presentation of a difficult subject to a
          general audience

          I thought maybe that a certain magazine was branching out ;- )

          Well, not calling it a novel would be a good first step. And I don’t see
          what “structure” is, or how its different from editing. Also, I’m not sure
          how did would work, but I find that some of these works tend to
          be…patronising, talking down to the audience. but that would be a
          negative rating, so I dunno.

          I’m thinking I agree. I find myself clumping Structure, Editing, and Presentation into one group, two at most. Care to explain the differences for us? I can understand if Editing is basically proofreading…no spelling mistakes, etc. That kind of editing will definitely vary by print run, leaving real editing for the other two categories.

          Structure and Presentation seem definitely the same idea. Sturucture seems to be about what Flow is for the comic books, Presentation is the art. But in a non-fiction work, these really should be tied together. When they aren’t, it’s likely that the art is either non-existent or very rare, and generally not necessary to the work. Scoring 6 points on the Presentation of a book with no illustrations seems a bit much to me.

  4. Let’s see if I can do this…
    That’s supposed to be (hmm, look up ë in Character map…Alt + 0235) Godël, Escher, Bach.

    It’s coming out as some funky A in my version of IE.

    • Re: Let’s see if I can do this…

      That’s supposed to be (hmm, look up �in Character
      map…Alt + 0235) God�, Escher, Bach.

      It’s coming
      out as some funky A in my version of IE.

      Your “el” in Godel is coming up as a square in my version
      of Konqueror, although yours looks right (and mine looks
      wrong) in my version of Mozilla. I think I’ll just drop
      the umlaut entirely for the actual review and avoid such
      concerns.

      • Re: Let’s see if I can do this…

        That’s supposed to be (hmm, look up �in Character
        map…Alt + 0235) God�, Escher, Bach.

        It’s coming
        out as some funky A in my version of IE.

        Your “el” in Godel is coming up as a square in my version
        of Konqueror, although yours looks right (and mine looks
        wrong) in my version of Mozilla. I think I’ll just drop
        the umlaut entirely for the actual review and avoid such
        concerns.

        This is a little weird… I used preview specifically to make sure it would look right, at least in IE (yes, I’m a Windows geek. I apologise.) The preview page showed it correctly. The current page, though, shows {i with umlaut;upside down question mark;1/2 symbol}, for each {e with umlaut}. Go with the Americanised charcter set, I guess.

    • Re: Let’s see if I can do this…

      That’s supposed to be (hmm, look up ë in Character map…Alt + 0235) Godël, Escher, Bach.

      It’s coming out as some funky A in my version of IE.

      No, it’s spelled Gödel. German doesn’t have an e with Umlaut. Dutch has something that looks like it in print (the German Umlaut is two diagonal stripes, actually), but it’s called a trema (two dots on the vowel), and used to prevent the vowel from modifying the sounds of neighbouring vowels.

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