The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 67, July 1963 - April, 1964 Page: 603
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Southwestern Historical Quarterly and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Texas State Historical Association.
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Book Reviews
It was also a considerable surprise to find this book, from the
hand of one of the nation's leading historical editors, to be so
poorly edited and so inadequately revised. The first page of the
first chapter contains sufficient examples of this disconcerting de-
ficiency. On that page alone, two commas, absolutely required by
any rules of good usage, are omitted; one semicolon should be
a colon; one period should probably be a question mark; three
pronouns have vague or incorrect antecedents; the first two sen-
tences of the second paragraph belong properly to the thought in
the first (i.e., that there was a meeting of white men of one party
and Indians of another); in the remainder of paragraph two,
dealing with Sanaco, the fourth sentence is a complete digression
and should be reduced to a parenthetic expression (such as,-a
claim made by almost every Comanche chief of any prominence) ;
and the first sentence of the third paragraph is composed of two
completely unrelated independent clauses which should be sep-
arated into two sentences and two thoughts.
There are innumerable other examples of this kind of in-
credible carelessness. The last sentence on page 59, utterly devoid
of punctuation, is a striking illustration of the sort of thing that
Richardson would automatically edit out of an article for the
Year Book or a student paper: "By way of offsetting these handi-
caps of the settlers the most effective factor was the new system
of defense provided by the federal government and these changes
now will be related." [Delete "By way of"; add a comma after
"settlers"; put a period after "federal government"; and make
"these changes" singular to agree in number with the singular
antecedent.]
In length, quality, and subject matter, the nineteen chapters
are as uneven as their headings would indicate. These vary, with
a dismaying lack of logic or parallel structure, from simple sen-
tences (Marcy Marks a Trail) through conjunctive phrases (Be-
fore Marcy Came) and gerund phrases (Extending the Settle-
ments) to straightforward titles (The Reservation War). Some
chapters have sub-titles which in themselves range from the
vaguely enigmatic (Old Settlers and New: The Towns) to the
nearly redundant (Forts Phantom Hill and Chadbourne: History
and Tradition).603
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 67, July 1963 - April, 1964, periodical, 1964; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101197/m1/681/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.