________________________________
From: stefano franchi <stefano.fran...@gmail.com>
To: Ray Rashif <schivmeis...@gmail.com>
Cc: Jacob Bishop <bishop.ja...@gmail.com>; obregonma...@gmail.com;
"lyx-users@lists.lyx.org" <lyx-users@lists.lyx.org>
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2012 2:01:39 PM
Subject: Re: APA6 class with LyX?
On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 11:59 AM, Ray Rashif <schivmeis...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 11 December 2012 01:21, Jacob Bishop <bishop.ja...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> have found very few people in the social sciences who are even aware of
>> LaTeX. Not closed minded, just unaware. They use MS Word and Endnote because
>> they don't know that there are good/better (free) alternatives.
>
>And this stems from the fact that social science has negligible need
>for (typesetting) equations, because that's what really sets LaTeX
>apart. With MS Word you can configure references, cite them and
>arrange your document based on styles. For qualitative/descriptive
>papers, that is enough. As such, few people find any need to go out of
>their way to look for something better.
>
>
<rant>
Not true. LyX/Latex's benefits are not limited to typesetting equations
(although it does a much better job that its competition in that area). A
Latex-typeset document looks better in many other respects---from
paragraph-division and typesetting (in spite of recent improvements in Word's
algorithms), to consistent application of style, down to small but crucial
things such as determining font sizes/leading[1].
The reason why Social sciences/Humanities are happy with Word/Endnote is
(historically speaking) different: authors used to submit Word files (or,
earlier, Wordstar) and the publisher would import and typeset with real
typesetting software. Such programs (and still are) were usually very bad at
typesetting complex mathematical formulas unless each single formula was
tweaked by hand, a very painful and expensive proposition. That was prompted D
Knuth to invent TeX---the poor quality of professional typesetting software for
math, not the similar but irrelevant problem in word processing program. The
lack of equations in the Humanities/Social Sciences made the traditional
process working smooth and insured that the typographical quality of
publications in the fields was high, or at least acceptable. Authors used
primitive (typographically speaking) software, publishers used real typesetters
and everyone was happy.
Except...that desktop publishing happened and publishers started to cut down on
costs by using word as a typesetting program. Even worse, when they started
asking for pdf, camera-ready they would provide typographical specs as series
of Word instructions, since they do not know any better (all the typesetters
having long gone). The result is that the vast majority of Humanities/Social
Sciences journal and and increasing number of Humanities *books* are now
typographically ugly and often barely readable
The same radical cost-cutting measures took place in the Natural
sciences/Engineering, of course. But since *they* were already using Latex/TeX,
the quality of their journal and books was only minimally affected (although it
was: it takes a truly capable typesetter to achieve high results in
Latex--relying on standard classes is only the starting point. And most authors
not named Knuth are not great typesetters).
That's why we in the Humanities are stuck with Word as a publishing
tool---because it used to work well as a drafting tool when the industry worked
differently, not because we do not use equations.
</rant>
Now, now, remain calm. Of course, just to reinforce your point have a look at
http://www.apa.org/pubs/authors/instructions.aspx on page 2 which points out
the sorry state at least in the APA journals. The assumption is Word though it
is not required otherwise unless some journals do specifically request it.
Display Equations
We strongly encourage you to use MathType (third-party software) or Equation
Editor 3.0 (built into pre-2007 versions of Word) to construct your equations,
rather than the equation support that is built into Word 2007 and Word 2010.
Equations composed with the built-in Word 2007/Word 2010 equation support are
converted to low resolution graphics when they enter the production process and
must be rekeyed by the typesetter, which may introduce errors.
--
__________________________________________________
Stefano Franchi
Associate Research Professor
Department of Hispanic Studies Ph: +1 (979) 845-2125
Texas A&M University Fax: +1 (979) 845-6421
College Station, Texas, USA
stef...@tamu.edu
http://stefano.cleinias.org
