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Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 727.
Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
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www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: Ken Friedman
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.725: liberated resources for research training (148)
[2] From: Gabriel Egan
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.726: on using academia.edu (58)
[3] From: Susan Ford
Subject: RE: [Humanist] 33.726: on using academia.edu (8)
[4] From: David Zeitlyn
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.725: liberated resources for research training (71)
[5] From: john@anterotesis.com
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.726: on using academia.edu (24)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2020-04-03 12:43:11+00:00
From: Ken Friedman
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.725: liberated resources for research training
Dear David,
Thanks for your note. I can respond to the questions and issues that you raise,
at least as I see them:
> a) What is the citation for this please?!! I cannot see full source
information nor a DOI (more on this below)
It's an unpublished working paper, so there is no DOI. The citation is:
Friedman, Ken. 2019. Twelve Principles of Reference and Citation. Research
Skills Working Paper. Shanghai: She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and
Innovation.
At some point, I plan to rework this into a peer reviewed article for the
journal. Then it will get a proper citation and a doi.
> b) response to
>
> 9. Never use second-hand references from other articles or books. Always check
cited sources first-hand.
> "Never" is a tricky term here: I'd say it's a judgement call. If central to
the argument then yes go back to source but if peripheral then it may be
acceptable to cite second-hand since time spent chasing that source is in effect
a choice not to spend time reading something more central. And when you are
citing secondhand my understanding was that one should NOT cite the originating
source since you do not know with confidence that the quote is correct: you
point to the place you got it from.
IMHO, this is one of my twelve principles. I came to it because I have found on
many occasions that authors of articles and books are mistaken in their citation
and quotation of other sources. If one uses a second-hand source, you are quite
right in pointing to the source where you got the information. But the incidence
of incorrect citation these days is so great that it is best to check. This is
especially the case for well-known sources that one should check. One sees many
incorrect second-hand citations where an author states that Albert Einstein,
Margaret Mead, Martha Nussbaum, or Clifford Geertz has said something. When I
check the documents that are supposedly cited, however, I often find this is not
so. I've had much of my library digitised, so it is easy to check whether a
key word or phrase appears in the cited source. In some cases, it is clear to me
that the citing author in the second-hand source may not even have used the
source he or she claims to have used. I've seen this in numerous cases where
people cite the first edition of a famous philosopher's collected works, now
sixty years out of print, even though most university libraries do not own a
copy, and even though it is not possible to find a single copy in any library in
some nations. This is because the second edition is far more widely available
" and because an important university press published a two-volume collection
of this philosopher's most important papers in the past decade or so. Since
the most commonly cited articles appear in the two-volume edition, anyone who
actually reads them cites the two-volume edition. I also know that there are
another half dozen editions that someone who reads the work might cite. But when
I see careless citations to the first edition of the collected works, a little
sleuthing will usually demonstrate that the citing author hasn't read the
actual cited work. In fields marked by this kind of carelessness, I think the
best advice to most researchers is never to use second-hand references, but
rather to check the original source and use it. That also leads to better work,
as reading the original source often prompts new thinking.
> c) from 12 Digital sources require a complete reference. A URL or a doi is not
sufficient.
>
> But DOI's are very different from URLs (strictly URIs): indeed as I understand
it DOIs were developed in response to linkrot, the way URLs break over time.
The idea is that a DOI is unique and invariant so can stand as a shorthand for a
complete reference (which is available via doi lookup services)
Even though a doi is permanent, it is also a location, and not a reference
citation. It is my view that every reference citation should contain the full
available information. This is a service to the reader, and it is part of the
craft of research. As with any craft, good workmanship is an aspect of good
research. By providing full information on each cited source, one permits the
reader to decide whether to dig for more information or not.
In this respect, I have sometimes been compared to the bandit Tuco played by Eli
Wallach in Sergio Leone's 1966 spaghetti western, The Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly. At one point, Tuco says something on the subject of care to the Man with
No Name, played by Clint Eastwood. "My father was a very careful man," says
Tuco. "He wore a belt and suspenders."
As a writer, I'd rather be careful. It seems to me best to give readers all
the information they need in one place. As a journal editor, I prefer my authors
to be equally careful. That's a decision I am making on behalf of our readers.
I may be wrong on this, but I believe that it leads to greater care and
thoughtfulness that improves the quality of the journal.
We certainly welcome venturous writing and adventurous ideas. If an author
wishes to speculate, stating an idea as his or her opinion, we'll permit
speculation. We think there is more room for adventure where authors are tight
and careful with every fact they provide. Citations are facts. Authors who
demonstrate care deserve more leeway when it comes to adventurous ideas.
In the Twelve Principles, I recount the story of Albert Einstein's 1905
article on Brownian motion. With relatively few references, he built a careful
argument from a phenomenon that was first observed in 1827. This was in great
part possible because nearly every physicist and chemist at work in the world
was aware of Brownian motion, as well as the physical and chemical facts that
Einstein asserted. Einstein's argument was based on evidence known to nearly all
of his colleagues, and the key information was readily accessible in many major
texts and reference books. Max Planck published this article in Annalen der
Physik based on the care and rigorous development of Einstein's article. The
article reached an adventurous conclusion. At that time, many of the world's
physicists argued against the physical reality of atomic theory. Some believed
that atoms were a mathematical convenience in certain calculations, but they
argued against the reality of atoms. Within a few years after publication,
Einstein's article changed the minds of most of the world's physicists.
Nothing that I write promises to have that kind of impact. Nevertheless, I
believe that care and rigour in every detail not readily at hand for most
readers makes a article stronger. This includes full publishing information for
every cited source, rather than requiring readers to go to another source to
locate the information.
When I studied for my PhD in the early 1970s, some references used only a city
of publication. This was a throwback to the really old days when most printing
presses were licensed by the crown. To see that a book was published in Venice
or Wittenberg meant that it could only have been published by one of two or
three presses. By 1970, this had changed. The world had many thousands of
publishers. Even so, many journals used the old style " city alone, without
the name of the publishing firm. It was, in fact, possible to locate the press
using a massive, multi-volume reference book called the Union Catalogue. With
author, year, and city, one could find the publisher of any book. Even so, I
preferred reference formats that gave me all the information I needed to find
the book swiftly.
Times have changed, but the use of complete, careful references remains a useful
courtesy. That's why this is one of the twelve principles.
Others may feel differently on this. I wrote the principles document from my
viewpoint.
Warm wishes,
Ken
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The
Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in
Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-
journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation
| Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Eminent Scholar | College of Design,
Art, Architecture, and Planning | University of Cincinnati ||| Email
ken.friedman.sheji@icloud.com | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman
| D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2020-04-03 10:24:04+00:00
From: Gabriel Egan
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.726: on using academia.edu
Dear HUMANISTS
Ken Friedman has generously shared with this
list (by email attachment) the materials he
previously shared by putting on the Academia.edu.
I recommend them to anyone who hasn't read them.
I learnt from them and in one detail -- his
recommendation that writers put quotation marks
around the words in block/indent quotations --
he has changed my mind and I'll be pushing for a
change in the collective referencing habits of my
field because of the cogent point he makes about
how things get mangled in electronic transmission.
Ken doesn't see what is dodgy about Academia.edu.
One place to start is the ".edu" top-level
domain (TLD) name. Because the ".edu" TLD connotes
an accredited university, Academia.edu would not
now be eligible to register as a ".edu" due to
regulations designed to prevent fake academic
institutions trying to pass themselves off as
legitimate ones. But Academia.edu managed to register
as a ".edu" before the regulations were tightened.
They have a legal but not a moral right to this
TLD, since it undoubtedly misleads users (especially
students) into thinking that it is part of the
academic community rather than a for-profit
corporation.
Ken says that he has no website and hence no place
to put materials on the open Worldwide Web. If his
university doesn't offer him some web space -- most
do although they increasingly restrict what we
can put there -- then an ordinary webhosting account
is worth the minor expense and the slight trouble
of learning how to FTP files to it. One doesn't
need a fancy looking website to share materials:
plain old HTML and a bit of Cascading Stylesheet
code -- easy to do and worth learning -- can
produce an entirely respectable looking website.
One last reason to avoid walled gardens like Academia.edu
is that they tend to come and go, and when they go
people lose their content. In the 2000s, a lot of
musicians put a lot of effort into their MySpace sites
only to find that MySpace lost them in a server upgrade
last year. The same thing happened 10 years earlier
when Geocities was closed. By contrast, truly open
websites belong to and are controlled by their
makers, who can easily back them up, and they are
also archived by The Internet Archive.
Regards
Gabriel Egan
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2020-04-03 09:54:38+00:00
From: Susan Ford
Subject: RE: [Humanist] 33.726: on using academia.edu
Hi Ken
Does not your university have an open access place to put papers?
Cheers
Susan
--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2020-04-03 09:39:19+00:00
From: David Zeitlyn
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.725: liberated resources for research training
Dear Ken
many thanks for making these resources available.
Here are a few responses to your "Twelve Principles of Reference and
Citation"
a) What is the citation for this please?!! I cannot see full source
information nor a DOI (more on this below)
b) response to
9. Never use second-hand references from other articles or books. Always
check cited sources first-hand.
and
11. Every source document cited in the text must appear in the reference
list.
Every item in the reference list must appear in the text.
"Never" is a tricky term here: I'd say it’s a judgement call. If central
to the argument then yes go back to source but if peripheral then it may
be acceptable to cite second-hand since time spent chasing that source
is in effect a choice not to spend time reading something more central.
And when you are citing secondhand my understanding was that one should
NOT cite the originating source since you do not know with confidence
that the quote is correct: you point to the place you got it from.
c) from 12 Digital sources require a complete reference. A URL or a doi
is not sufficient.
But DOI's are very different from URLs (strictly URIs): indeed as I
understand it DOIs were developed in response to linkrot, the way URLs
break over time. The idea is that a DOI is unique and invariant so can
stand as a shorthand for a complete reference (which is available via
doi lookup services)
best wishes
davidz
--
David Zeitlyn,
Professor of Social Anthropology (research). ORCID: 0000-0001-5853-7351
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, School of Anthropology and Museum
Ethnography
University of Oxford, 51 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PF, UK.
http://www.isca.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-david-zeitlyn
http://www.mambila.info/ The Virtual Institute of Mambila Studies
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~wolf2728/
2020 Monograph:
Mambila Divination: Framing Questions, Constructing Answers (Routledge Studies
in Anthropology)
London: Routledge. ISBN 9780367199500
A paper on the intellectual genealogy of primatologists: "Perception, prestige
and PageRank"
David Zeitlyn, Daniel W. Hook | published 28 May 2019 PLOS ONE
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216783
Online vizualisation https://livedataoxford.shinyapps.io/DavidZeitlyn/
Oct 2015 open access paper 'Looking Forward, Looking Back'
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02757206.2015.1076813
Vestiges: Traces of Record http://www.vestiges-journal.info/ Open Access Journal
--[5]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2020-04-03 08:39:40+00:00
From: john@anterotesis.com
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.726: on using academia.edu
Dear list,
I understand Ken Friedman's defence of academia edu as being the path of
least resistance for publishing on the web, even if it is strewn with
traps for readers.
However, academia edu is now made quite redundant by the free, open,
academic-led 'Humanities Commons', which is even easier to both publish
on and read from:
https://hcommons.org
Best,
John Levin
--
John Levin
http://www.anterotesis.com
http://twitter.com/anterotesis
https://hcommons.org/members/johnlevin/
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