[WikiEN-l] Primary sources

[Steve Bennett]

On 3/17/06, Jonathan <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote:
> And point C seems like the hard one to determine. If it is not hard, it
> is at least contentious. For example, let's say there is a statement in
> a primary source that says:
>     Joe said he saw the ghost.
>
> The article then uses that as a source and changes it to state:
>     Joe believes in ghosts.
>
> It might be true, but it seems like an interpretation based on the
> possibility that Joe might have actually lied despite his belief in
> ghosts or not.

This kind of interpretation is perfectly acceptable imho. If there's
no particular reason to think that Joe lied (ie, he didn't say so the
next day), then using words like "believes" or "thinks" is not
contentious. Occasionally a little unclear, particularly if the
person's current beliefs are unclear, but that's more a question of
style than an application of NOR. Similar kind of deal if you say
"Joe, angry about the lack of consultation, believed he had been
misled", when your source says something like "Joe said yesterday,
"Those bastards told me they weren't going to do anything without
asking me, but they screwed me over".

My example isn't very well worded, but I'm trying to show that you can
deduce "angry" from the colourful language, and "believed" as a
convention for "said that he thought".

Steve