Anybody ever written a book?

[aolwien]

And gotten it published. Non-fiction. I'm trying to write one but my main obstacle is when is the appropriate time to cite sources and use notes? I've got tons of documentation but I don't want to annotate every single sentence. Yes, I pretty much winged it through 2 years of college.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. Soon! Should be on the market December 2014...my first!

On contract with Storey publishing - it's been quite a ride - they have the manuscript and pics, and we will soon be doing editing, I suspect!

[LongTomH]

2. Check out the Writing forum on DU

It's under the Reading & Writing tab.

[leveymg]

3. All depends upon subject matter and intended audience.

Can you give us a better idea? If it's a doctoral dissertation, you'd need at least one primary or 3 secondary sources for each factual representation that the reader wouldn't be expected to already know. That would be footnoted as you go along. That's as rigorous as it gets.

I've had five legal practice books published as coauthor or chapter author in the last couple years.

[aolwien]

4. It's about an obscure aspect of US military cold war history.

I found a cache of documents that support my findings. I don't want it be too heavy with citations but enough that it supports what I'm writing. Secondary sources would be interviews with witnesses or not?

[leveymg]

6. I would heavily footnote the first draft. The publisher might pull them out, but they lend

credibility to your work if they can be fact-checked by the publisher's junior editors.

Interesting subject - can you encapsulate for us what you've learned?

[aolwien]

7. Good advice

Thank you!

[leveymg]

8. Good luck with the project

[leveymg]

9. P.S.: interviews can be primary or secondary,

depending upon whether the person had direct knowledge of events. See, http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/research/primary-secondary-tertiary.html

[trumad]

5. Calling Will Pitt

[HereSince1628]

10. Yes. I have

Most general readers want general information, this is presented in your own voice, based on things you've learned reading about the issue and after homogenizing all that stuff, said in your own words.

When the need arises for some specific support, you MUST make a citation that recognizes the source of that support. Sometimes that feels like every sentence has references to multiple other authors.

That's the nature of it. Do it. Clean it up with the help of the editor you are assigned.

[Johonny]

11. I have

The best advice I can give is to document everything and let your editor recommend to remove or reduce them. It is vastly easier to remove things post editing than to remember where you found a source after the fact. In general you should not have to annotate every sentence since presumably you will be adding your own opinion, insight, work to the material being cited.