Writing a book: How do you use references?

Question

I'm re-writing my PhD dissertation as a book manuscript. My dissertation includes in-text citations to back up what I'm saying in almost every sentence - (Doe, 2012). My brief review of academic books on my bookshelf seems to imply that books don't do this.

1. I know the audience and purpose of a book is different than a manuscript, but shouldn't the level (and visibility) of academic rigor be maintained?

2. In a book manuscript for a university press, how do you go about integrating these citations? Should they just be transferred to footnotes that include the full bibliographic reference? Do you maintain the in-text citation?

Answer 1

Since it is a book, you need not cite in-text in the same way you would an academic article. Simply transitioning to endnotes (super-script 1,2,3) will make the text immediately more readable. I'm reminded of Steven Pinker's book 'The Blank Slate' that contains many hundreds of citations but the text is not cumbersome due to efficient endnote use. In that work at least, Pinker puts the majority of 'main idea' endnotes at the end of a paragraph, reserving within-paragraph citations for very specific ideas. While this can at times lead to some ambiguity, it preserves readability.