RE: case for abstract?

I certainly didn't mean to minimize the importance of the abstract, only to say that in most areas of publishing it isn't commonly used (scholarly and standards being two of the exceptions). I should also say that it is rapidly becoming more widely used, especially in commercial contexts where it lives outside the paywall. I advise all of my clients to include abstracts for that reason. But they're often in metadata and almost always explicitly labelled as such. In trade publishing they're typically in the ONIX feeds but not in the books themselves . . . unless you want to consider "flap copy" a form of abstract. . . . ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Ivan Herman [mailto:ivan@w3.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2015 10:52 AM
To: Heather Flanagan (RFC Series Editor)
Cc: W3C Digital Publishing IG; W3C PF - DPUB Joint Task Force
Subject: Re: case for abstract?

Indeed, all W3C documents must have an abstract! :-)

Ivan

> On 14 Apr 2015, at 16:37 , Heather Flanagan (RFC Series Editor) <rse@rfc-editor.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Signed PGP part
> FWIW, technical standards may use an abstract as well (e.g., all RFCs 
> must have an Abstract).  The Series started with strong ties to 
> academia, but I wouldn't label it as such today.
> 
> -Heather Flanagan
> 
> On 4/14/15 7:29 AM, Bill Kasdorf wrote:
> >
> > I agree that abstract is most commonly used in publishing in 
> > scholarly
> content, and there, almost always in journals. Books are just now 
> beginning to acquire abstracts (in the past very few books contained 
> them, though some did), and there they are often treated as metadata, 
> not rendered content. In a journal article, an abstract is almost 
> always a clearly distinguished structural element in the rendered 
> content—which, btw, almost always has a heading identifying it 
> explicitly as the abstract, which of course AT would read. And even 
> then, in JATS, the XML model overwhelmingly used for almost all 
> journal articles, the article abstract is in the <article-meta>, the 
> "metadata header" at the beginning of every JATS XML article, from 
> which it is retrieved for rendering. (Figures and tables can also have 
> <abstract>s.)
> >
> >
> >
> > So imo there are better reasons to exclude "abstract" from the
> vocabulary than to include it, given the conflict with ARIA's use of 
> the term.
> >
> >
> >
> > *From:*Matt Garrish [mailto:matt.garrish@bell.net]
> > *Sent:* Monday, April 13, 2015 10:30 PM
> > *To:* public-digipub-ig@w3.org
> > *Cc:* public-dpub-aria@w3.org
> > *Subject:* Re: case for abstract?
> >
> >
> >
> > Oops, meant to send this to the dpub ig, but keeping both lists on
> since it seems appropriate to both...
> >
> >
> >
> > *From:*Matt Garrish <mailto:matt.garrish@bell.net>
> >
> > *Sent:*Monday, April 13, 2015 10:26 PM
> >
> > *To:*public-dpub-aria@w3.org <mailto:public-dpub-aria@w3.org>
> >
> > *Subject:*case for abstract?
> >
> >
> >
> > In the interests of solving abstract, the first question I’d ask is:
> is it critical for the first iteration of this vocabulary?
> >
> >
> >
> > It was a term that was introduced in epub for education, and it 
> > seems
> more suited to scholarly and education publishing. I’m not even sure 
> the last time I spotted an abstract outside of those contexts, or 
> specifications, at any rate. We’re not trying to cover everything, and 
> there are absences like dedication that seem more commonly usable.
> >
> >
> >
> > Should it be punted to future discussions about stem/scholarly, as
> we’ve similarly passed on assessments, learning-* and statement?
> >
> >
> >
> > And if anyone is using it currently in their EPUBs, please feel free
> to make a case for or against swapping in summary. I’ve said my fill 
> on where I think we’ll run into ambiguity with that term in the other 
> thread, but I don’t have any skin in the game and talking theory is 
> about as useful as spouting hot air.
> >
> >
> >
> > Matt
> >
> 
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C
Digital Publishing Activity Lead
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/

mobile: +31-641044153
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704

Received on Tuesday, 14 April 2015 15:10:22 UTC