On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 10:01:03PM -0600, Todd Allen wrote:
With some very simple searches, I can source that the
Earth is round,
orbits the sun, and that the chemical formula for water is H2O.
The issue isn't whether we can source those things. The issue is that we
_should not_ give individual references for facts like that. Because:
* Attaching a source to them gives the false impression that they
are controverisal, or that the source given is going to say something
particularly profound about the topic. If too many footnotes are used,
it's no longer possible to tell which footnotes are actually interesting
to check and which are for facts that nobody disagrees with. This makes
the footnotes much less useful for a reader, who can no longer use them
to build intuition about the material.
* Doing web searchs to find sources leads to a random hodgepodge of
dozens of references, each used just to source one simple fact. This is
an awful writing style, and often leads to the use of poor references
(web pages, etc.) found in the web searches. It's better to stick to
professionally published textbooks and articles.
* Especially in the sciences and mathematics, sourcing trivial facts
like you listed above is completely odds with accepted practices in the
field.
[[Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines]] has a nice explanation of
the things that should be sourced. In particular, regarding basic facts
like the ones above, it says:
The verifiability criteria require that such statements be sourced so
that in principle anyone can verify them. However, in many articles
it is cumbersome to provide an in-line reference for every statement. In
addition, such dense referencing can obscure the logical interdependence
of statements. Therefore, in sections or articles that present
well-known and uncontroversial information – information that is readily
available in most common and obvious books on the subject – it is
acceptable to give an inline citation for one or two authoritative
sources (and possibly a more accessible source, if one is available) in
such a way as to indicate that these sources can be checked to verify
statements for which no other in-line citation is provided.
- Carl