I recently posted on Language Log about a Times Online story detailing several instances of excessive offense-avoidance by public or semi-public bodies in the U.K. Since shocked reports of such “political correctness” are a staple of the conservative media in the U.K., I was somewhat suspicious of the examples. But though the story had direct quotations attributed to these bodies (as well as indirect characterizations of their edicts on language use), of course it had no links, so it was left to the reader to check up on the reports. No apparatus.
I mention this because of my annoyance with Arthur Goldwag’s 2009 book Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies (“The straight scoop on Freemasons, the Illuminati, Skull and Bones, black helicopters, the New World Order, and many, many more”), which I’d seen recommended in several places. The book is fascinating, though dismaying, but it has no apparatus. I’ve pretty much come to expect no index in a book meant for a general audience, but there are also no references listed, and no notes tracing the sources of the factual material in the book (including direct quotations). Goldwag isn’t an academic, but a “freelance writer and editor”, but he clearly did a huge amount of research on the book, and we don’t see evidence of it here.