Carcharoth wrote:
The ideal is a mix of lots of tertiary and secondary
sources. We need
to use multiple and independent sources to avoid over-representing or
copying a single source (in the sense of 'light rewriting' or 'close
paraphrasing'), and to produce something that is distinct and
different from that single source. Just tertiary sources alone is not
really producing a proper encyclopedic article, and using only
secondary sources is not great either. If the secondary source used by
another encyclopedia can be accessed and confirmed, then that should
also be cited in our article.
In terms of copyright a light rewriting or close paraphrasing can still
create a derivative work which can itself be an infringement.
This "looking up the sources of the sources"
is a problem with some
tertiary sources that don't cite their sources. It is also a problem
with obscure articles that don't have much written about them out
there, so when we summarise here, we are not really adding much value
in terms of aggregating different sources, but more repeating what
someone else has done.
True enough. In the former circumstances, by using tertiary sources
which do not themselves cite sources there is a risk of inadvertent
hyper-plagiarism; maybe we should be stating that we have no idea where
this other encyclopedia got its information whenever that is the case.
With obscure articles (or topics?) we can only report what we find. All
we can do is report what we find. Aggregating different sources and
maintaining NPOV prevents us from synthesizing some new result. If a
periodical article is the only article found on the subject we should
say that. There is no obligation to engage in a futile search for a
counter-opinion that does not exist. Richard Burton's ''Pilgrimage to
Mecca and Medina'' is evidence for what he saw or believed he saw; and
how he interpreted that in his own idiosyncratic way. There are other
ways of looking at these things, but we don't need to track them down
before we can write anything.
But re-reading what the three of us have written here,
I think we are
using slightly different senses of primary, secondary and tertiary.
Journal articles are, in many senses, primary sources. I think the
confusion arises because you can have "secondary literature", which is
different from "secondary sources".
In some ways yes, but the reality of peer review would suggest that
these are not articles by some rogue mad scientist. Journal articles
may in some senses be primary sources, but in other senses they are just
as much not. A complete prohibition on primary sources could yield
absurd results: A writer on US history would not be able to use the
Constitution as a reference because it is a primary source.
But I agree entirely, that in any area where there is
controversy or
doubt, defer to the best and most authoritative sources that give an
overview of an area, a summary, a text that surveys the literature and
does the work for us of giving due weight in at least a reasonably
objective fashion. This is usually, but not always, the most recent
such publication, though sometimes years of research and publications
take place before a new overview text emerges.
Better to just write fairly about both sides of a controversy. Giving
undue weight to the most recent publications risks giving undue weight
to the latest fashions in the marketplace.
Ec