On 12/18/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/19/06, zero 0000 nought_0000@yahoo.com wrote:
On the other hand, even though "Legal experts have stated that Y [cite][cite]" is clearly valid, it doesn't properly convey what the sources indicate. There ought to be some way to record that a standard legal database did not provide ANY contrary opinions. Given how much lawyers love to argue with each other, this is a highly unusual situation.
I think a better way to handle some of these issues is to accept that straying into the grey area of OR is unavoidable, so let's come up with good ways to do it. "The consensus of academic opinion in X database appears to indicate that" is better than "The consensus of academic opinion in X database is that", for example.
"Appears that", "is probably" etc are key words that indicate to the reader that the interpreter is us, and therefore not very reliable. We have a similar situation when we need to indicate that *we* (the nameless, voiceless writer) don't actually know something: "Whether there are other species with these characteristics is not known" can be a bit ambiguous (who doesn't know it - scientists, or us, the laypeople).
Actually, that's making things worse; we're now using weasel words ("appears that", "probably is") to cover our original research ("the consensus is"). If we only have primary sources, then we say what the primary sources say. If we have a secondary source that says "the consensus of legal opinion is", then great. If not, then *we* cannot become that secondary source that draws that conclusion, partly because we're not experts in this field, but mostly because it's original research. Remember, the second you say "the consensus is", you need to be able to state exactly who considers there to be a "consensus". Otherwise you are "introducing an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source."
Jay.