- Messages
- 26
As a relative newcomer to ME/CFS, I was keen to see what Ian Gibson had to say, particularly from a political standpoint, so I bought the book as soon as it came out. Oh my! As an editor, my heart sank. I nearly cried. There are so many things wrong with the book that I don't know where to start. Many of you have already covered some of them. If you want to get a message out there, it is absolutely crucial that it is done in the most professional manner possible. What I say might sound pedantic and nit-picky, but these things really do matter.
Layout and appearance are important. Most of us probably bought the book for the content, but good layout helps readability. Other readers might not know about the potential content, so appearance does make a difference as to whether they decide to read it. Layout was poor and had clearly not been thought about. I counted 6 different typefaces being used within the first 4 pages. Choose 2 max - one serif, one sans serif - and stick to them throughout. Choose a book you like and found easy to read and copy what they've done. It's not rocket science!
Inconsistencies with paragraphing and line-spacing stood out and disrupted the flow. The text was unjustified - I guess this is personal preference, but it is harder to read. There were widows and orphans everywhere, and even headings were left hanging at the end of pages. In fact, use of headings was patchy. Often the text underneath a heading didn't actually stick to the topic.
I don't think the text had been edited. It might have seen a spell-checker, but that's probably about it. Many sentences were unreadable and simply didn't make sense. Editing isn't just about spelling and grammar. It's also about sentence structure and readability. It is also about content structure, and this was all over the place. Topics would jump about. Earlier and later chapters were referred to, but weren't where they were supposed to be. Later chapters would go over material from earlier chapters as if they hadn't already been mentioned.
I tried very hard to see past all this to get to the content - but was not rewarded. The subtitle of the book is "A health scandal in our generation", but I failed to find any account of this, other than allusion or innuendo - a sort of nudge-nudge, wink-wink, those-who-know-what-I'm-talking-about-know-what-I'm-talking-about. As an outsider, I would think that there's some science going on, and there's some politics going on, and governments are behaving in their usual incompetent manner, and ... yeh, so what? There were no substantial details (or too much detail about really quite inconsequential things). Events were mentioned as happening, but not *what* happened. I think the authors were trying to be as uncontroversial as possible, and didn't want to upset anyone. However, in early chapters, they would allude to controversial topics in a way that was very off-putting.
Timelines were impossible to follow - particularly over the setting up of parliamentary committees and general government business. I still have no idea what any of them actually did. The Gibson Inquiry was frequently mentioned, but again, I have no idea about the content, scope, or outcome, other than there is not enough being done about ME/CFS and there needs to be more biomedical research (which I already knew). The juxtaposition of this with "here is what Invest in ME are currently looking at," leaves the reader slightly baffled about whether there is a problem in this area at all. Although lots of science was mentioned, it was not particularly well explained.
One of the key chapters was on The Biopsychosocial Model (Chapter 5). The model was very poorly explained, and despite the author saying, for example, "We will take time to explain the difference between general illness and disease," all we got was, "Physical disorders, distress and illness vaguely portend disability," and he (or she?) was off on another ramble about something else. The chapter was full of dropped ideas and non sequiturs, and read like a cobbled-together transcript of dictaphone notes (which I suspect it probably was!).
Referencing seemed sort of OK (despite some omissions), but the reference list at the end of the book was woefully incomplete. The use of hyperlinks and html refs in printed books is always going to be tricky. :/
The only good thing was the case studies. If the whole book had just been patients' accounts of what was happening, I would have been happier.
Others here have suggested that maybe a revised version could be published. To be honest, I don't think it is redeemable other than completely rewriting it. If the authors do go down that route, the first thing they need to address is who the book is aimed at, because that is very unclear.
And finally, if you are planning your own book, please please please get professional help. There are plenty of us around who are happy to give our advice and help for free. Damn it, it's pretty much the only thing I can do to help, so please use me!
Layout and appearance are important. Most of us probably bought the book for the content, but good layout helps readability. Other readers might not know about the potential content, so appearance does make a difference as to whether they decide to read it. Layout was poor and had clearly not been thought about. I counted 6 different typefaces being used within the first 4 pages. Choose 2 max - one serif, one sans serif - and stick to them throughout. Choose a book you like and found easy to read and copy what they've done. It's not rocket science!
Inconsistencies with paragraphing and line-spacing stood out and disrupted the flow. The text was unjustified - I guess this is personal preference, but it is harder to read. There were widows and orphans everywhere, and even headings were left hanging at the end of pages. In fact, use of headings was patchy. Often the text underneath a heading didn't actually stick to the topic.
I don't think the text had been edited. It might have seen a spell-checker, but that's probably about it. Many sentences were unreadable and simply didn't make sense. Editing isn't just about spelling and grammar. It's also about sentence structure and readability. It is also about content structure, and this was all over the place. Topics would jump about. Earlier and later chapters were referred to, but weren't where they were supposed to be. Later chapters would go over material from earlier chapters as if they hadn't already been mentioned.
I tried very hard to see past all this to get to the content - but was not rewarded. The subtitle of the book is "A health scandal in our generation", but I failed to find any account of this, other than allusion or innuendo - a sort of nudge-nudge, wink-wink, those-who-know-what-I'm-talking-about-know-what-I'm-talking-about. As an outsider, I would think that there's some science going on, and there's some politics going on, and governments are behaving in their usual incompetent manner, and ... yeh, so what? There were no substantial details (or too much detail about really quite inconsequential things). Events were mentioned as happening, but not *what* happened. I think the authors were trying to be as uncontroversial as possible, and didn't want to upset anyone. However, in early chapters, they would allude to controversial topics in a way that was very off-putting.
Timelines were impossible to follow - particularly over the setting up of parliamentary committees and general government business. I still have no idea what any of them actually did. The Gibson Inquiry was frequently mentioned, but again, I have no idea about the content, scope, or outcome, other than there is not enough being done about ME/CFS and there needs to be more biomedical research (which I already knew). The juxtaposition of this with "here is what Invest in ME are currently looking at," leaves the reader slightly baffled about whether there is a problem in this area at all. Although lots of science was mentioned, it was not particularly well explained.
One of the key chapters was on The Biopsychosocial Model (Chapter 5). The model was very poorly explained, and despite the author saying, for example, "We will take time to explain the difference between general illness and disease," all we got was, "Physical disorders, distress and illness vaguely portend disability," and he (or she?) was off on another ramble about something else. The chapter was full of dropped ideas and non sequiturs, and read like a cobbled-together transcript of dictaphone notes (which I suspect it probably was!).
Referencing seemed sort of OK (despite some omissions), but the reference list at the end of the book was woefully incomplete. The use of hyperlinks and html refs in printed books is always going to be tricky. :/
The only good thing was the case studies. If the whole book had just been patients' accounts of what was happening, I would have been happier.
Others here have suggested that maybe a revised version could be published. To be honest, I don't think it is redeemable other than completely rewriting it. If the authors do go down that route, the first thing they need to address is who the book is aimed at, because that is very unclear.
And finally, if you are planning your own book, please please please get professional help. There are plenty of us around who are happy to give our advice and help for free. Damn it, it's pretty much the only thing I can do to help, so please use me!
