Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 09:36:39 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
In this case the reference is a primary source that says "these people go to this university." A perfectly good reference to cite when saying "this person goes to this university." That's hardly a creative act of information synthesis.
*Provided* there is only one person in the world with that name, and provided that the source actually does say they go to that university rather than being, say, a bare list of names. Oh, hey! It's a bare list of names that doesn't actually say they are studying there. Helloooo novel synthesis :o)
I assume you're also one of the folks who supports removing Angela Beesley's birthdate from her article because although the birth register for her hometown's hospital listed an Angela Beesley born on the same date she claimed was her birthdate, there could have been _another_ Angela Beesley born on the same day and in the same hospital as her? This level of synthesis is not a novel creative act, IMO.
Besides, the basis of this particular subthread is that the source didn't actually support the statement, so whether it's original research is moot. We don't need more stringent policies on sources to deal with it, just people who actually click the links and _check_ them.