Linda Crowl -- publishing in the Pacific Islands: page 4

PUBLISHING STANDARDS

Technological innovations render publishing easier. Some make costs of publishing decline; others make producing and checking documents and graphics easier. These factors make publishing possible for the public. Some people argue that these trends lower publishing standards and proliferate poor publishing. Others argue that the trends broaden and democratize the knowledge base.

'Poor' Publishing

The amount of publishing has increased because of technological innovations and because of declining costs of production. Individuals, though trained in geography, physics or creative writing, may be untrained in editing, layout and production and unacquainted with rules of spelling, grammar, punctuation and style. For instance, people may not know what an orphan or a widow is, how words should be hyphenated, how pages should be broken, how captions should be written, or how pictures should be cropped and sized. Unfamiliarity with the publishing process can drive up the cost of publishing as errors are made, then found at a later stage of production, thus costing more to remedy.
In particular, these things can pose difficulty for people who publish in a language other than their mother tongue. However, this is not universal. Speaking from years of editing experience, I can say that some native English speakers with PhDs can have more difficulty with the English language than many people who use it as a foreign language.
In the rush to publish anything ‹ a particular problem for academia under tenure pressure or agencies under funding deadlines ‹ articles are often reprinted. For instance of 15 articles in Fishing for Answers (Matthews 1995), 4 were reprinted from other sources, i.e., 27 per cent of the book.

'Good' Publishing or Greater Participation in Publishing

Although books may not be sophisticated or stylistically correct, they may be on subjects that large publishing houses would not touch. Despite not meeting others' standards, the books may reach a market where otherwise few or no books would be bought or read. For instance, Taira Rere and his family have published on the island of Rarotonga, where 9,000 people live.
     Taira Rere's The History of Rarotonga was typeset, printed, and bound in Fiji, then shipped to the Cook Islands in 1992. By 1994 all 1,000 copies had sold out. The author has since passed away, but his daughters continue to publish this and his other books. Rather than reprinting and perfect binding, they had the book photocopied and saddle-stitched. All are produced using similar inexpensive means of copying and binding (Chitty 1995). His family, photocopy shops and booksellers in Rarotonga gain income from his books; the information is disseminated, facilitated by technology now available in a small community, uncontrolled by mass media or a large publishing firm.
     Furthermore, what is stylistically correct for Oxford University Press may not be easily understood by many Pacific Islands peoples. Within the South Pacific, a region of more than 1,200 languages, clarity in communication even with a lingua franca such as English varies from country to country -- just as American, Australian and New Zealand dialects differ from those in the United Kingdom. Solomon Islanders express themselves in English differently from Fiji Indians. Neither is wrong, the English language changes wherever it is used. What is stylistically appropriate for the government printer in Tonga may be misunderstood by readers in Yap. Publishers at home or close to home are likely to be more sensitive to local use of language.
     Although many articles are reprinted or revised and printed, they often reach a different market the second time around. For instance Lamour Gina-Whewell's article on 'Roviana Women in Traditional Fishing' first appeared in Science of Pacific Island Peoples (Geraghty et al 1994), then reappeared in Fishing for Answers (Matthews 1995). Researchers looking under 'fisheries development' in a card or computer catalogue, or bookshop customers searching for women's titles, are more likely to find Gina-Whewell's article in the second book. More information reaching more people through a variety of channels is better.

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