Reflection 3

I've gotten another new task at the Press. The Press publishes academic journals as well as books and they have a lot more work in journals right now. Last week I started working on fact checking; I think that's what it would be considered. I was given a journal article that has been accepted to be published, and I have to go through and make sure every source the author mentions is correct. I've been spending most of my time in the library. First I had to go through and find every book or journal the author used. If WVU had them, I checked them out of the library. Otherwise I used the library's EZBorrow and ILLiad to get the exact copy. It's important to have the exact edition that the author cited so I have what they used when I'm checking quotes and to make sure the author actually used the book they said they did. Then I used the books I've gotten so far to check that all the citation information is correct--publisher, place, year, etc--and if they quote the text, I have to check that it matches exactly.

I've been keeping track of what I've done with lists and marking up the copy of the article. I check everything that is correct as is and correct everything that isn't. That way whoever gets it next knows everything that I looked up. I'm also writing where and how I got the books incase someone has to go back and get them again. I'm about half-way done right now and I'm in the process of creating a new list that organizing every book, which ones I'm done with and which ones I'm still waiting on. This is teaching me to be a lot more organized about assignments than I usually am. I have to save everything; if someone needs to recheck something, I can save them a lot of time be keeping detailed notes. I'm learning what kind of organization works best for me. I like to keep status lists with every book I'm using and then filling in what is currently going on and the date. Everytime something changes, I cross the old entry out, write a new one, and write the date.

I've been having a good time with this assignment. It's a little challenging because some of the books are hard to find and the author has made mistakes in almost every quote she's used. That's partly good; if the paper were perfect, I'd probably get bored. However, when I find something that is quoted correctly, I triple-check it just in case. Overall, though, I like doing it. It's really made me aware of all the tools the library offers. I had never used the library recall, EZBorrow, ILLiad before this assignment. I also started using a tool called WorldCat to see how many libraries have a book. That way I know how likely I will be to find it or it I'll need to find a substitute. I'll be able to use these skills in other class and maybe grad school. It's also good experience for a future job. This seems like a the kind of assignment an entry-level person could get. Already having experience tracking down and using sources could be a big help to me.

I'll probably continue doing this for the rest of the week. After that, I'm not sure. It seems like every week this semester I'm doing something new. It's going great so far.