- Options
- Login
- Desktop Style
Options
Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
- Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
-
Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
ReneZ > 09-02-2018, 09:50 AM
This post has been triggered by two recent comments by Diane. This first of these in a recent You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , but I did not want to disturb that discussion with something off-topic.
I would like to caution people against being misled by the following statement You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. :
Quote:It would also be the civil thing to do to run a google search and acknowledge the first person(s) to suggest similarities that you repeat in your paper. If only everyone did that it would save a lot of embarrassment and no-one could possibly suggest you'd just 'lifted it'.
Anyone writing in a blog post about their original thoughts and original work should not need to worry about this. Every blog poster knows very well what is their original work and what has been copied from elsewhere. The latter should be indicated.
It only becomes a problem if anyone says that he/she is the first to do or write a certain thing. This is almost impossible to prove, so one should be very careful in writing such things. I did not read the entire blog of "Searcher" so cannot say if this problem occurs.
If one posts original work, one should not expect to be accused of 'lifting' it. The fault lies with the person making the accusations.
Equally importantly, a "Google search" is inadequate for finding out about earlier work. This was also discussed briefly in Nick's blog, just a few days ago. As useful as it is for finding things, the result is not representative for the complete picture, and gives only a tiny fraction of relevant information.
To know the history of research in any topic, one has to do a thorough literature search. This is usually outside the possibilities of someone who is not already involved in this research, because one has to start from scratch, and most important resources are not to be found by a Google search, but only in libraries and archives. Or one has them already since one is more or less deeply involved.
For the Voynich MS there are many archives like the Beinecke, the Grolier Club, the Marshall library, and numerous other repositories of correspondence. None of these can be read through Google. Again, this is only a real problem if one wants to claim to be the first in something. Still, one misses a lot of interesting, and potentially useful information.
Therefore, the suggestion to use Google to find out about precedence is not a good one, for two reasons:
1 - you know yourself (and don't need to ask Google) what is your original work
2 - Google gives you a useless answer.
Fortunately, for the Voynich MS, these archives have already been searched by different people, and one can find bits and pieces of useful information in books like D'Imperio (1978) and Brumbaugh (1978). The first is even available on-line as a PDF, but not searchable, so again Google is no help.
All of this is true for blog posts, but a completely different regime applies for academic publications. Here, one cannot just write about a topic and not worry about what others have written. One has to demonstrate that one is familiar with the state of the art of this topic. This is especially important if one wants to present an alternative to what is 'best knowledge'. So, you don't only quote people who do the same thing, but also those you are intending to contradict, if these are important.
More often than not, demonstrating this knowledge is not an issue if the author is a known authority in the field, or, if it is a relative newcomer, by having such an authority as co-author.
The second post of the two I mentioned in the beginning demonstrates some of these points. It is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . I wasn't going to comment on it, but it fits in perfectly with this issue.
The statements:
Quote:Apart from some vague observations which were acute enough but undeveloped (such as a couple of John Tiltman's), there was no informed comment on this imagery between 1912 and 1931, when Anne Nill made a note of some offered by Panofsky. Once again there was no explanation in detail for those observations, though that doesn't lessen their importance as the first unforced, informed commentary we have.
Thereafter there appears to have been nothing recorded of any informed observation or comment on the imagery before 2008.
are plainly incorrect. (I put an effort to avoid terminology that would not be in line with forum policy).
However, this could be the impression one gets from relying on a Google search, and not bothering to look at literature, some of which is easily available. -
RE: Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
davidjackson > 09-02-2018, 07:15 PM
Rene, you are of course perfectly correct.
I'd point out that Google is hardly omniscient. For example, there are sections of this site to which Google has no access, but forums members do.
Google will also not give you a correct publication date. The best it can do is suggest when it first became aware of the content. -
RE: Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
Searcher > 09-02-2018, 08:38 PM
To Diane:
If you are especially interested whether my comparisons (with lions) original or not, I can say that they are my own observations which I shared in the vms-list in June of 2014, then - in my first blog, in the voynich.ninja and, finally, in my new blog. I never found the same comparison in Google and I'll tell more, you won't find it even now.
Actually, those comparisons weren't popular, because one or couple of comparisons itself is nothing, all the more if they are out of a total scheme. We can make comparisons to all we see and find similarity, but they are useless without a complexly explained theory. This is the aim of every researcher, I think.
Personally I make Google searching rather with the aim to find something useful to know more about the object of my interest. For example, when I was going to make a post about the lunar tides in relation to f67v2, I was interested what people say about this. All I found was your comment on the Nick Pelling's Cipher Mysteries, but you didn't explained the whole diagram. So, the only way was to do it myself.
In conclusion, a little of fun (although I was hurt :-). When I've registered my new blog, devised an adress name (voynichaquavita), I tried to check whether it will be searched by Google or not. The first thing that I found was the new musical album You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (2017) of the band The Voynich code, and nothing - about my blog. What? How? - I asked myself. - They outran me!
Pay attention to the list of the songs in this album. Undoubtedly, this is the cosmic music
-
RE: Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
-JKP- > 09-02-2018, 11:44 PM
Quote:davidjackson: I'd point out that Google is hardly omniscient. For example, there are sections of this site to which Google has no access, but forums members do.
Yes, good point.
In addition to sections of Web sites that have the "search bots off" setting, many well-respected research databases are behind subscription walls. It costs money to maintain them and to provide peer-review services for the submissions, so one cannot necessarily find or access them in a Google search.
Google mostly searches and displays items available on the Web (to people with Web browsers), but the Internet is vast, and not everything is Web searchable or Web-browser viewable. Even if they are, the Web page is often nothing more than an on-ramp to a larger base of information that is not necessarily accessible by the public. -
RE: Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
Diane > 12-02-2018, 12:43 PM
I completely agree that Google searches are not enough/
But they are a start - and a first, easy step is all I was suggesting, since Searcher seems not to have done it.
Quote:Every blog poster knows very well what is their original work and what has been copied from elsewhere. The latter should be indicated.
That's not the point and it is not reasonable to think of the issue in such terms.
In fact, Voynich studies used to observe the same standards that are normal in other fields of research: that's why we still speak about 'Neal Keys' and 'Currier Hands' and credit John Tiltman with doing such-and-such, or credit Friedman with first observing something else.
The aim isn't to puff up the first person who did it, and far less to falsely puff oneself up by the simple means of leaving out the name of the original researcher.
The aim is to help the study advance, by making clear where we got a particular idea about the manuscript, and where a newcomer can go back to read the evidence and reasoning behind that opinion.
As I say, this normal practice used also to be normal in Voynich studies, but it all went pear-shaped at some stage during the early 2000s.
I really don't know who started the brainless meme that 'to cite precedents is unnecessary' but it is one of the things that counts very much against the study and the people in it. And a major reason the study goes no-where because instead of knowing, reading and commenting on what has already been done (the normal way a science advances), all that's done is to go over and over and over the same old ideas - none of which led anywhere then, and still don't.
People have been talking about Aldrovandi's 'Plants of the Alchemists' books for twenty years; they have gone over and over the 'Balneis' for decade. The 'alchemical imagery' idea has been around for at least sixty years.
It is not normal for the study of a medieval manuscript to proceed in such a way. It is not normal for science; it is not normal for history; it is not normal for cryptography.
What is normal is to find, and cite, previous research, naming the researchers and so allowing your readers to get a proper sense of perspective on the topic - so they too can add a little, knowing what has already been said and done.
Why should it be necessary to explain this to members who - some of them at least - have degrees in medieval studies, or in historical or scientific studies? -
RE: Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
Diane > 12-02-2018, 01:01 PM
I stand by my comment above, btw
Quote:Apart from some vague observations which were acute enough but undeveloped (such as a couple of John Tiltman's), there was no informed comment on this imagery between 1912 and 1931, when Anne Nill made a note of some offered by Panofsky. Once again there was no explanation in detail for those observations, though that doesn't lessen their importance as the first unforced, informed commentary we have.
Thereafter there appears to have been nothing recorded of any informed observation or comment on the imagery before 2008.
Obviously I cannot respond to Rene's assertion that this is "plainly incorrect" since it is an assertion, unsupported by anything like evidence. I have considered Fr.Theodore Petersen's work, since he had a background of formal studies in medieval iconography, but so little is left of his work, that it cannot be judged as well- or ill-informed.
(I put an effort to avoid terminology that would not be in line with forum policy).
I should have preferred, frankly, a comment more informative and more plainly directed to the issue. -
RE: Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
ReneZ > 12-02-2018, 02:28 PM
Quote:The aim is to help the study advance, by making clear where we got a particular idea about the manuscript, and where a newcomer can go back to read the evidence and reasoning behind that opinion.
This is very good. Providing information to newcomers is exactly why I started my website in 1998.
People don't all have to start from scratch.
Of course, if this is one's genuine aim, one should be careful not to lead people astray by giving false information.
It is better to say: "I don't know how much has been written about the imagery between 1912 and 2008" than to say there was (almost) nothing of value.
The first would be correct, the second not.
Equally, stating:
Quote:, but so little is left of his [i.e. Th. Petersen's] work,
is wrong, and apt to mislead people.
In Beinecke box 408-B there is correspondence from him ranging from 1935 to 1961.
In the Marshall library there is an even larger collection of letters and notes in items 1615.1 - 27 of the Friedman collection.
I will leave the Pandora's box of what is and what is not "informed" opinion tightly closed. -
RE: Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
davidjackson > 12-02-2018, 07:15 PM
Yes well I think we have amply discussed this subject, both here and elsewhere.
If I may sum up, I think we are all in agreement that prior subject matter should be quoted where-ever possible. Notwithstanding that, it may be a little heavy handed to demand rigorous standards of academic professionalism from people posting on their personal blogs.
But we should always remember to post sources as much as possible. Apart from anything else, it makes our job of convincing the reader much easier, as we are able to draw upon the work of other people to bolster our own case.
Let's not get into a discussion of Th. Petersen's work here, please. We can open a new, neutral thread to discuss his work, if we have sources to quote and samples to post. -
RE: Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
ReneZ > 12-02-2018, 08:13 PM
David,
I can't agree at all.
That a blogger should Google for other people writing about the same topic, in order not to be accused of stealing those people's work is ridiculous. They may quote whatever they consider relevant, and they may choose to ignore whatever they consider not relevant. This is true for material that they did not use, read, or even known about, when they wrote their piece.
One has to quote the sources that one uses, there's no doubt about that.
Let's also not be too naive about this. Diane herself is no better. She makes no secret of the fact that she will not cite sources that she happens not to like. Such as D'Imperio, and, obviously, my web site.
I don't have a problem with that, for the very reason I wrote 2-3 paragraphs above.
It is simply not consistent, and not serious.
In a more academic environment, all this is very different, but of course that does not apply here, as you say. -
RE: Blogs and scholarly publications, literature search and Google
davidjackson > 12-02-2018, 08:28 PM
Rene-
As I said:
Quote:it may be a little heavy handed to demand rigorous standards of academic professionalism from people posting on their personal blogs.
If you quote sources, you bolster your own argument. Which is an excellent argument for amateurs to do it as much as possible.
But let's not get carried away. At the end of the day, it's not necessary to academically quote everything on your blog, nor research to see if anyone else has ever had an angle on your idea. You're not writing an academic paper, you're writing on your own blog, which will quickly vanish once you bore of the Voynich and move on.
Also, it seems that this topic flares up every three months on average. Frankly, I'm tired of it. Let's move onto something more productive.