Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/26/06, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Personal communications are valid to cite. All one needs to do to check is call the guy and
ask the same question.
All our sources have to be published, Daniel, i.e. in the public domain, so a personal communication can't be cited.
That is absurd since not all knowledge has been written. What matters is if you can trust the source and if it is verifiable. The method of communication is not that important.
If it's extremely important and not available elsewhere I suppose I could see citing personal communication, but in general I'd be wary of it precisely because it's *not* particularly easily verifiable. The source, often in another country, might not be easily reachable, and is likely not immortal. This is also true, of course, of particularly obscure and hard-to-acquire books; in both cases, preference should be made for more widely-available sources.
As an added bonus, widely-available sources tend to be more authoritative and reviewed by more people in the field, who have the opportunity to point out errors.
-Mark