A few people have asked me if I intend to include references in my book. References are common in non-fiction books and usually take the form of a superscript number at the end of a sentence which links to a numbered list at the foot of the page, end of the chapter or back of the book containing the references to the source material.
Personally, I find references of this kind very annoying when reading a book. They are difficult to ignore but severely interrupt the flow of the text when followed. I appreciate that they are necessary for academic publications, but are they really necessary for books aimed at a more general readership? Few non-academic readers will want to check out a reference and those who do can easily look it up on the Web. References shouldn’t be required in order to support the author’s credibility, as the publisher will have made sure that the author knows his or her subject thoroughly before agreeing to publish the book in the first place.
If you look at the sample chapters of my own book, you will see that I’ve taken a slightly different approach. At the end of each chapter there is a section entitled Further Reading which lists a selection of the source material for that chapter plus any related publications which may be of interest. Any readers who want to delve deeper into the subject can do so by obtaining copies of this material, much of which can be found on the Web.
Of course, a publisher may take a different view and insist that I include full references for every scrap of source material used in the book. I hope this won’t be the case but I guess it would be a small price to pay for the privilege of having my book published!
The Story of the Computer 