phoebe ayers wrote:
Maybe we need to put more emphasis on "encyclopedia as a tertiary source" -- let other people do the summarizing and the vetting and sorting out of what ideas are going to stick around for the long-term, and focus away from citing original research directly, which helps side-step the danger of representing obscure or untested theory as canonical truth. This might be particularly be true for new scientific discoveries or new ideas in the humanities. (Different perhaps for events in the news, articles about pop culture, etc).
That's generally what I try to do, at least in cases where high-quality summary sources are already available. IMO, if there are well-regarded survey articles, specialist encyclopedias, etc., on a subject, then it's verging on original research to directly cite even secondary sources (e.g. journal articles with original research) to develop a new summary view. I only really resort to citing secondary sources directly on a pragmatic basis if: 1) no good tertiary sources already exist; and 2) the material is either not likely to be controversial, or I've checked that it's corroborated by multiple independent sources.
-Mark