IF Theory Bibliography
Lodestone
Seeing as I seem to have become peculiarly drawn to IF Theory (or, at
least, seeing what happens when you apply branches of Critical Theory
to IF), I've been wanting to read up on where people have gone before.
The main resource I've found was Dennis Jerz's bibliography at
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/bibliography/all.htm . That, however, was
written in 2001 -- so I was wondering first if there's been a similar
annotated bibliography written more recently (I haven't been able to
find one myself), and second, if there hasn't been a more recent
bibliography, how we could go about compiling one, and who would be
interested in doing it. Despite only being vaguely active recently,
I'd like to help bring one together, if one is lacking.
Cheers,
Lx.
denni...@gmail.com
> Hallo all,
> if there hasn't been a more recent
> bibliography, how we could go about compiling one, and who would be
> interested in doing it. Despite only being vaguely active recently,
> I'd like to help bring one together, if one is lacking.
I have in the back of my mind thought about updating the bibliography
and re-submitting it to the journal, but I'd be glad to participate in
a group project for a general readership, too.
The IFWiki seems like a natural venue, since the framework is already
in place and it will be easy to link to names, game titles, and
vocabulary terms.
Lodestone
Wikiing something like a bibliography is definitely a good way of
gathering resources together, as it allows contributions from
different areas of expertise. And it allows for it to be a continuing
piece of work. However, I personally value the editorial oversight of
something like your Annotated Bibliography. Also, some of the data-
gathering would presumably require some concentrated legwork, while
doing everything on a wiki tends to encourage passive contribution of
what's already known. So perhaps using the wiki with a couple of
people to make sure legwork is being done and to edit it into
something complete (or, at least, temporarily so) would be a good
approach?
That's if this call-out doesn't bring out someone who's already
updated your work :-D
On a different tack, I've been trying to track down Mary Ann Buckles's
1985 PhD thesis on a Critical Theory approach to "Adventure", but
haven't been able to find it. Is it, alas, one of those things you can
only now get by paying an exhorbitant fee to the institution?
Cheers,
Lx.
Vivienne Dunstan
> On a different tack, I've been trying to track down Mary Ann Buckles's
> 1985 PhD thesis on a Critical Theory approach to "Adventure", but
> haven't been able to find it. Is it, alas, one of those things you can
> only now get by paying an exhorbitant fee to the institution?
It might be available via http://wwwlib.umi.com/dxweb/gateway - an
online ordering facility for copies of dissertations and theses that
arrive through the post. Prices look quite reasonable if you're in North
America too ($41 inclusive of delivery).
Viv
denni...@gmail.com
> However, I personally value the editorial oversight of
> something like your Annotated Bibliography. Also, some of the data-
> gathering would presumably require some concentrated legwork, while
> doing everything on a wiki tends to encourage passive contribution of
> what's already known.
Yes, and that's one reason why I was considering publishing an update.
To make it useful for a scholarly audience (which is only a fraction
of those who are interested in IF) I had to write it in a certain way,
and the annotations and rankings are all from a certain unified
perspective (namely, would this source be useful for someone doing a
scholarly study on interactive fiction?).
>
> On a different tack, I've been trying to track down Mary Ann Buckles's
> 1985 PhD thesis on a Critical Theory approach to "Adventure", but
> haven't been able to find it. Is it, alas, one of those things you can
> only now get by paying an exhorbitant fee to the institution?
I don't recall an exorbitant fee when I got my copy, but that was
years ago and quite frankly I don't remember how I got it. If you can
go through a university library, that would probably help.