Journals published by the American Physical Society can be found at http://publish.aps.org/We compare the use of asymptotic normalization coefficients (ANC's) and spectroscopic factors determined from peripheral transfer reactions for determining the overall normalization of peripheral direct radiative capture reaction processes. We demonstrate that ANC's provide a natural way to parametrize the rates of both peripheral transfer and direct capture reactions. Furthermore, ANC's inferred from one reaction may be used in the analysis of a second reaction without further knowledge regarding their origin, and independent measurements of a given ANC may be combined to give an overall "best value" in a straightforward manner. In contrast, a spectroscopic factor derived from analysis of a peripheral transfer reaction can only be used in subsequent calculations if one has detailed knowledge of the single-particle bound state orbital that was assumed when the spectroscopic factor was obtained
