h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Bookmarks - A713954
Author: R - U178383

Entry: Bookmarks, A713954
Author: R, U178383

oh, now I see how the system works. Sorry 'bout the double entry.

/R

As a library worker this article grabbed my interest instantly. Just a few suggestions to fill you free weekend hours with.

"two-dimensional shape" "2D-object "- even a tissue is three dimensional. Visually the language is good, but it's physically inaccurate

"Therefor I"- typo for 'therefore' and for entries they don't like first person so the usual rule is if you want to refer to yourself you just change it to "in this researchers opinion"

"non-fictitious"- non-fiction is the common phrase

"daughter"- only young females collect bookmarks? Non-sexist language, you may find, is often more accurate and less likely to annoy your reader

I think a entry on this topic is required, thanks for putting in the time to write this.

A nice entry, covering all the interesting aspects of bookmarks The things that struck me when reading it were -

You may like to add a reference to the Guide Entry on books - A193998

In paragraph two, the last sentence reads "Therefor I do not consider these stopgap measures to be proper bookmarks." Edited Guide entries are supposed to be written in the third person, so you should alter this sentence to say: 'Therefore, these stopgap measures are not considered to be proper bookmarks.' or something along lose lines.

"A bookmark is placed on the page that one wants to save, fairly near the spine, with approximately a third of the bookmark sticking out over the top of the page"

This all depends on the size of the book, and the bookmark. I think it would be better to say that one should leave a few inches' worth of book mark sticking out, rather than 'one third'. I find that leaving too much bookmark sticking out tends to cause it to becoem dislodged, and increases the chances of falling out.

I have a very nice leather bookmark, and i always thought that leather boomarkers were a rather classy kind of bookmark. Perhaps you could add a few lines about leather bookmarks in the 'Manufactured bookmarks' section.

Apart from these little comments, a great entry. Put it into the Guide, I say!

I have been reading about nono-tubes and these are generally described as 1D because compared to their lenght their other dimensions are insignificant. I adopted this way of thinking when writing this article. Is it too confusing? I could change it to 'flat' or something similar.

All other points duly noted
Cheers
/R

I like this entry. Although I feel that a mnetion of the time honoured tradition of folding over the corner of the page you are on should be mentioned. An old favourite when reading somebody else's books I've found.

This is a very good entry I must say I'm reading 'Stranger in a Strage Land' at the mo, and my bookmark is a photograph of Ben Franks diner in LA

How about a brief mention in the manufactured bookmarks section of... I can't bring the correct word to mind right now. I had a Captain Kirk bookmark once which I left in a library book that I checked back in. Never saw it again Bookmarks that are manufactured to tie in with a product or film or tv show.

What *is* the word I'm looking for

Promotional bookmarks or ad bookmarks? I think they come under the heading "decorative bookmarks" as their main quality is thier decoration.

Promotional! That's the one

Oh yes, I forgot about those. We call them dog-ears. I've added a few sentences near the beginning to explain why I've left this tradition out of the rest of the article.

/R

Although I disagree that it isn't a proper bookmark, it isn't in the sense of the entry. Well sidestepped. Thanks for the mention though.

I rather like this entry, it does seem to be pretty comprehensive. I have a few comments to make on it though.

You mention that folding over a corner of a page can damage a book. Perhaps you should also mention this with putting in bulkier items, which I don't reckon does books any good.

Also, whilst two-dimensional is probably an accurate description of a bookmark, I would prefer the shorter and less technical sounding flat, which is also less likely to cause confusion.

In the bit on decorative bookmarks, you use the word I. In h2g2, as has been mentioned, h2g2 isn't supposed to include the first person. Perhaps 'this is probably the most widely spread of all bookmarks' rather than 'I think it's safe to say that this is the most....', would be a good replacement, that also has the advantage of being shorter.

In the corner bookmark bit you mention the hypotenuse of the right-angled triangle. This might be confusion if you don't know which the hypotenuse is. Perhaps longest side would be a good replacement here. However, you might want to include a footnote to explain what one is instead.

In the section on digital bookmarks, you say 'webbrowser' as if it is one word, but I am not sure if it is all one word. I don't think it looks right as one word, although I could be wrong here.

Nice entry!

Small typo - Therefor > Therefore

There are loads of plastic paperclip type bookmarks these days as well. The classiest of the metal bookmarks IMHO are made of silver (you can get gold ones as well).

One type of bookmark which you haven't mentioned is a type my mother uses to mark out her bible. It has metal spines, which you place along the spine of the book, having opened a page and clips into a holder at the top and bottom of the book. There are then other horizontal strips, which have numbers at the end and project from the side of the book. I don't know the technical term for it. It's a bit fiddly to use, but if you are marking out a lesson that you read daily (for a week, say) or are reading in church, it's a good system.

I changed 2D, I wasn't too shure about that in the first place. I also added a footnote about the hypotenuse.

As you probably noticed I have a tendancy to slip into first person when writing and also knock words together. Both points are now fixed.

Cheers
/R

I think I'll have to refrain from including your description of a bookmark as I have truly no idea as to what it looks like or how it works. Thanks for the comment anyway...

Cheers
/R

Are you interested in me trying a better description, R, or are you not interested?

Interesting entry

Normally I use two other types of bookmarks you might mention.
1. The bookmark. Just remember the pagenumber in your mind. It takes some exercise, but then it works fine.

2. The Ad-hoc bookmark. Grab any piece of paper lying around. Often the salesslip you get when you buy the book. Only don't use a banknote, someone else may swap it for another ad-hoc or bookmark

I notice you seem to have responded to most of my points, but there is one you don't seem to have, and some other things I've spotted looking through the entry again.

Firstly, you don't seem to have noted my comment that bulky items are likely to damage books ,in particular by distorting the shape of the book if left in for too long.

Now, we will deal with the other points.

you say 'this habit isn't encourage', where encourage should be encouraged, in the second paragraph of the intro.

In the section on using the bookmarks, you use the word 'one' as in 'later when one wishes'. Whilst this is grammatically correct, to me it sounds a bit pretentious, compared to 'you','your', etc, which to me sounds more natural. Also, you use passive voice here 'A bookmark is placed' rather than active voice 'You place a bookmark', which I think would sound better and more natural. This applies a number of times in the paragraph.

In the section on the common bookmark, you talk about 'A 2-D object' using 2-D, rather than flat, which I think is better.

In the bit about informative bookmarks, perhaps you could mention that some books come with dividers that could be considered booksmarks. I think some dictionaries come (or came) with tabs for each letter, and similarly for paper based personal organisors, and some encylopaedias. I also use dividers for my notes at university, to divide notes into the different modules I am doing. Whether any of these count as bookmarks is another matter, although they perform a similar function to standard bookmarks.

Also, there is another use of the word 'one' rather than 'you', in this section. Finally in this section, in the last sentence you seem to be implying that with post-it notes you need glue, when I think that post-it notes stick on their owns. The key is the word 'and' in the sentence, rather than 'or' which is what I thing you mean.

In other words, you seem to be saying you use post-it notes, and glue, rather than post-it notes, or glue.

In the section on decorative bookmarks, I am not too keen on the first sentence. It seems to jar with the more measured tone of the rest of the entry, and in particular the section. But that might just be personal taste.

I am also not sure about the phrase' widely spread' I would think that widespread would be a good replacement, as that sounds better, or you could say 'popular'

In the second paragraph, you say that decorative bookmarks should look pretty. I would say pretty would be the wrong word, as that would tend to suggest a particular sort of look, probably with a lot of bright colours, in particular pink. For example, I don't I think be appropriate to describe a star wars one with chewbacca on as 'pretty'.

Perhaps attractive looking, or nice looking, or just nice would be a more generic description, that covers a wider range of styles, although perhaps you could think of a better word to use.

I also wonder whether the division into manufactured and homemade bookmarks is a useful one, as you say that some decorative bookmarks are homemade, and I gather that the ribbon bookmarks glued into the book would come with the book itself. Similarly with corner bookmarks, which could come under the home-made category.

This would remove the need for the rather long justification for why the final category of decorative bookmark should be in the manufactured category, in the last paragraph.

Alos, in the last paragraph of the decorative bookmarks section, you slip into the 1st person again with 'the type I'm referring to is made out of thin card or cloth', with the I'm. Also, later in the paragraph the same happens with ' first decorative bookmark I described', with the word I.

Also, in this section, I have a feeling that the short sentence about kids having albums of such bookmarks, should go at the end of the section, after you have described each of the types of bookmarks. Also in this sentence, the phrase 'by the more industrious youngsters' seems to be out of place where it is. This could suggest at the moment that many arrange their bookmarks, but only industriuos youngsters arranged by category.

You need to decide what this applies to. For example, if it that industrious youngsters collect bookmarks in albums, in which case the sentence should I think be something like 'It used to be popular among children to collect these flashy bookmarks and more industrious youngsters would often keep them in albums arranged into categories.' Also, I think you should rephase anyway, as in this example sentence to use active voice, similar to this'industrious youngster would often keep them in albums' rather than passive voice 'they would be kept in albums by industrious youngsters'. How exactly you want to phrase this is of course up to you, although I think that active voice is probably better here.

Finally, in the last section, I am not sure if the bookmarks use to store web adresses are really bookmarks, as you don't neccesarily use them to get back to your place, but perhaps to revit sites you have visited, that might have changed since your last visit, so you might not be looking to find where you left off, but looking at something new.

They are referred to as bookmarks in some web browsers though, but some instead refer to them as favorites instead. Perhaps you could also refer to some programs (particular help systems if I remember rightly) which let you bookmark certain pages that you want to refer to again. this is more related to the informative bookmarks, when you want to refer to certain pages again in reference wordks, rather than the regaining your place use of the bookmark word method that I suspect would be more useful in stories, or other books you are meant to read from beginning to end.

I'll try to address your comments in order

1) I've added a short comment right after the bit on dog-ears

2) I prefer the passive voice over the active one. It is not my buisness to tell others how to use bookmarks nor am I trying to sell them anything. It is a bid cold but it simply states what I think of as the normal way to use bookmarks.

3) I missed that 2D reference when I changed the last one.

4) I have included a mention in the beginning of the manufactured bookmarks section explaining why I have'nt included them.

5) regarding one vs you se point 2

6) I was refering to the glue on the post-its

7) I've changed that sentence now

8) Pretty is now changed into nice.

9) I like the division. Not many make corner bookmarks so that leaves only one exception and on a scientific scale that isn't bad. I was just mentioning the making of corner bookmarks to make it clear what they looked like.

10) I just keep slipping back into first person. I guess the (happy) absence of essay-writing in my schooling is starting to show. It is now changed into "in question"

11) Sentece on kids slightly rearranged

12) I think a favorite-marked page could be said to be bookmarked. It might not be exactly as you left it (I bookmark my daily cartoons and they change daily) yet it is unlikely that the content is completely changed. With the address listed among the favorites it is just making it easier for you to return to a page you (probably) liked which I think is a fair definition of a bookmark.

13) If we're thinking of the same think then it works in pretty much the same way as web bookmarks. I've put in a short sentence to mention that some peograms offer this feature.

I hope I remembered everything. The 'puter crashed right in the middle of editing and I had to redo everything.

Cheers
/R the

I think the ad-hoc bookmark you are reffering to is what I've called the common bookmark.

Regarding the bookmark it doesn't actually so to speak "hold" the page. It is absolutly useless to other and generally only works over short periods of time. It is also tricky if you are reading several books at once.

/R