Hello,
If someone uses a primary source, should the context be quoted directly? If it is not, would that constitute original research? Another words, if someone takes the primary source and interprets it to his or her own need, it does seem like a re-creation of a primary source. It's like original research in an attempt to make the primary source a secondary source.
I've seen this kind of discussion before. The result was that all scholarly work is always based on secondary scholastic sources. That does not give an answer to the primary sources as above, but it does shed some insight into non-scholarly source creep.
Feedback is appreciated.
Jonathan
Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
Mgm
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
Hello,
If someone uses a primary source, should the context be quoted directly? If it is not, would that constitute original research? Another words, if someone takes the primary source and interprets it to his or her own need, it does seem like a re-creation of a primary source. It's like original research in an attempt to make the primary source a secondary source.
I've seen this kind of discussion before. The result was that all scholarly work is always based on secondary scholastic sources. That does not give an answer to the primary sources as above, but it does shed some insight into non-scholarly source creep.
Feedback is appreciated.
Jonathan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I've been struggling with this a bit myself. I have to disagree with MacGyver, I think primary sources definitely play a role in good encyclopedic writing. For instance, the use of quotes from a published play could easily be useful in an article about that play. In this case the primary source would be easily verifiable and useful, so it's complex.
I try to only use primary sources to back up opinions found in secondary sources. Don't use a bunch of primary sources to come to a conclusion which is not supported in your secondary sources, since this definitely becomes original research. An example of where I've tried to do this is in [[Hymn to St. Cecilia]], where I quote from /published/ primary source material to support views expressed in other secondary sources. Makemi
On 3/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
Mgm
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
Hello,
If someone uses a primary source, should the context be quoted directly? If it is not, would that constitute original research? Another words, if someone takes the primary source and interprets it to his or her own need, it does seem like a re-creation of a primary source. It's like original research in an attempt to make the primary source a secondary source.
I've seen this kind of discussion before. The result was that all scholarly work is always based on secondary scholastic sources. That does not give an answer to the primary sources as above, but it does shed some insight into non-scholarly source creep.
Feedback is appreciated.
Jonathan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Oh, and yes, if you interpret the meaning of that primary source by paraphrasing, it probably becomes original research. Makemi
On 3/17/06, Mak makwik@gmail.com wrote:
I've been struggling with this a bit myself. I have to disagree with MacGyver, I think primary sources definitely play a role in good encyclopedic writing. For instance, the use of quotes from a published play could easily be useful in an article about that play. In this case the primary source would be easily verifiable and useful, so it's complex.
I try to only use primary sources to back up opinions found in secondary sources. Don't use a bunch of primary sources to come to a conclusion which is not supported in your secondary sources, since this definitely becomes original research. An example of where I've tried to do this is in [[Hymn to St. Cecilia]], where I quote from /published/ primary source material to support views expressed in other secondary sources. Makemi
On 3/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
Mgm
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
Hello,
If someone uses a primary source, should the context be quoted
directly?
If it is not, would that constitute original research? Another words,
if
someone takes the primary source and interprets it to his or her own need, it does seem like a re-creation of a primary source. It's like original research in an attempt to make the primary source a secondary source.
I've seen this kind of discussion before. The result was that all scholarly work is always based on secondary scholastic sources. That does not give an answer to the primary sources as above, but it does shed some insight into non-scholarly source creep.
Feedback is appreciated.
Jonathan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
--- MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
Depends on the topic, I think. Lots of Wikipedia articles survive by citing sources from contemporary news articles, for example. I'm not sure the primary/secondary source distinction is particularly useful for us. I'd argue we need only to make sure that A) the source can be verified to say what it's claimed to say; B) we can have some reasonable basis to believe the source is trustworthy; and C) we don't add any additional interpretation of our own beyond what the source says.
-- Matt
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
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Matt R wrote:
--- MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
Depends on the topic, I think. Lots of Wikipedia articles survive by citing sources from contemporary news articles, for example. I'm not sure the primary/secondary source distinction is particularly useful for us. I'd argue we need only to make sure that A) the source can be verified to say what it's claimed to say; B) we can have some reasonable basis to believe the source is trustworthy; and C) we don't add any additional interpretation of our own beyond what the source says.
-- Matt
And point C seems like the hard one to determine. If it is not hard, it is at least contentious. For example, let's say there is a statement in a primary source that says: Joe said he saw the ghost.
The article then uses that as a source and changes it to state: Joe believes in ghosts.
It might be true, but it seems like an interpretation based on the possibility that Joe might have actually lied despite his belief in ghosts or not.
WP:NOR doesn't seem to cover this kind of depth, or does it?
Jonathan
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
And point C seems like the hard one to determine. If it is not hard, it is at least contentious. For example, let's say there is a statement in a primary source that says: Joe said he saw the ghost.
The article then uses that as a source and changes it to state: Joe believes in ghosts.
It might be true, but it seems like an interpretation based on the possibility that Joe might have actually lied despite his belief in ghosts or not.
This kind of interpretation is perfectly acceptable imho. If there's no particular reason to think that Joe lied (ie, he didn't say so the next day), then using words like "believes" or "thinks" is not contentious. Occasionally a little unclear, particularly if the person's current beliefs are unclear, but that's more a question of style than an application of NOR. Similar kind of deal if you say "Joe, angry about the lack of consultation, believed he had been misled", when your source says something like "Joe said yesterday, "Those bastards told me they weren't going to do anything without asking me, but they screwed me over".
My example isn't very well worded, but I'm trying to show that you can deduce "angry" from the colourful language, and "believed" as a convention for "said that he thought".
Steve
And an easy way to even get around it is to make it an instance of reported speech.
"Joe wrote in his diary that he saw the ghost" -- let the reader parse out, if they want, whether he was just being silly or not. If Joe happens to be someone whose belief in spiritualism is important to state explicitly (i.e., Alfred Russel Wallace), then it is likely a secondary source has already commented on it.
FF
On 3/17/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
And point C seems like the hard one to determine. If it is not hard, it is at least contentious. For example, let's say there is a statement in a primary source that says: Joe said he saw the ghost.
The article then uses that as a source and changes it to state: Joe believes in ghosts.
It might be true, but it seems like an interpretation based on the possibility that Joe might have actually lied despite his belief in ghosts or not.
This kind of interpretation is perfectly acceptable imho. If there's no particular reason to think that Joe lied (ie, he didn't say so the next day), then using words like "believes" or "thinks" is not contentious. Occasionally a little unclear, particularly if the person's current beliefs are unclear, but that's more a question of style than an application of NOR. Similar kind of deal if you say "Joe, angry about the lack of consultation, believed he had been misled", when your source says something like "Joe said yesterday, "Those bastards told me they weren't going to do anything without asking me, but they screwed me over".
My example isn't very well worded, but I'm trying to show that you can deduce "angry" from the colourful language, and "believed" as a convention for "said that he thought".
Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Not only is it important when it is stated explicitly for such reason, but it is also important to know what group particularly "believes" it is so important. Also, it is important not to state the cart before the horse in such instances.
It appears these notions are known in practice, but it isn't covered in depth on guidelines. I wonder if it is possible.
Jonathan
Fastfission wrote:
And an easy way to even get around it is to make it an instance of reported speech.
"Joe wrote in his diary that he saw the ghost" -- let the reader parse out, if they want, whether he was just being silly or not. If Joe happens to be someone whose belief in spiritualism is important to state explicitly (i.e., Alfred Russel Wallace), then it is likely a secondary source has already commented on it.
FF
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
It appears these notions are known in practice, but it isn't covered in depth on guidelines. I wonder if it is possible.
Unfortunately, the more is added to our guidelines, the less likely they are to be actually read and understood. The point is better made on article talk pages or to particular editors, I feel.
-Matt
On 3/17/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
It appears these notions are known in practice, but it isn't covered in depth on guidelines. I wonder if it is possible.
Unfortunately, the more is added to our guidelines, the less likely they are to be actually read and understood. The point is better made on article talk pages or to particular editors, I feel.
-Matt
I think it has already reached the point where the only time I look at outr guidlines is when someone is trying to use them against me.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 3/17/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
It appears these notions are known in practice, but it isn't covered in depth on guidelines. I wonder if it is possible.
Unfortunately, the more is added to our guidelines, the less likely they are to be actually read and understood. The point is better made on article talk pages or to particular editors, I feel.
I think it has already reached the point where the only time I look at outr guidlines is when someone is trying to use them against me.
Indeed! And when this can be honestly stated by people with opposing views about what the guidelines should say, it doesn't say much for the credibility of the guidelines.
Ec
Steve Bennett wrote:
This kind of interpretation is perfectly acceptable imho. If there's no particular reason to think that Joe lied (ie, he didn't say so the next day), then using words like "believes" or "thinks" is not contentious. Occasionally a little unclear, particularly if the person's current beliefs are unclear, but that's more a question of style than an application of NOR. Similar kind of deal if you say "Joe, angry about the lack of consultation, believed he had been misled", when your source says something like "Joe said yesterday, "Those bastards told me they weren't going to do anything without asking me, but they screwed me over".
My example isn't very well worded, but I'm trying to show that you can deduce "angry" from the colourful language, and "believed" as a convention for "said that he thought".
Steve
I agree with the notion that logic inferences can be made. However, the use of "belief" signals a firm distinction from just "thought." I don't think it is generally acceptable to use "belief" based on what someone says unless there is more firm evidence to back up that belief. There are logical interpretations for the use of "belief." "We believe Joe saw a ghost," or "Joe thought he believed in ghosts." (The later "thought" changes the whole meaning of "belief.")
These notions are evident, and they make some Wikipedia articles gravely useless. When I have to go and verify the sources themselves to find out why it was so strongly stated "so and so believed..." by convention alone, I might as well just skip the text of the article and read through the reference lists. The article itself gave me absolutely no knowledge to the reason why such beliefs exist.
Jonathan
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
And point C seems like the hard one to determine. If it is not hard, it is at least contentious. For example, let's say there is a statement in a primary source that says: Joe said he saw the ghost.
The article then uses that as a source and changes it to state: Joe believes in ghosts.
It might be true, but it seems like an interpretation based on the possibility that Joe might have actually lied despite his belief in ghosts or not.
This kind of interpretation is perfectly acceptable imho. If there's no particular reason to think that Joe lied (ie, he didn't say so the next day), then using words like "believes" or "thinks" is not contentious. Occasionally a little unclear, particularly if the person's current beliefs are unclear, but that's more a question of style than an application of NOR. Similar kind of deal if you say "Joe, angry about the lack of consultation, believed he had been misled", when your source says something like "Joe said yesterday, "Those bastards told me they weren't going to do anything without asking me, but they screwed me over".
My example isn't very well worded, but I'm trying to show that you can deduce "angry" from the colourful language, and "believed" as a convention for "said that he thought".
"Believes" is always contentions because it presumes to know what is going on in someone else's mind. That use of "believed" as some kind of convention only holds as long as we all accept that conventional usage, and ignore other usages of the word.
Ec
Jonathan wrote:
Matt R wrote:
--- MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
Depends on the topic, I think. Lots of Wikipedia articles survive by citing sources from contemporary news articles, for example. I'm not sure the primary/secondary source distinction is particularly useful for us. I'd argue we need only to make sure that A) the source can be verified to say what it's claimed to say; B) we can have some reasonable basis to believe the source is trustworthy; and C) we don't add any additional interpretation of our own beyond what the source says.
-- Matt
And point C seems like the hard one to determine. If it is not hard, it is at least contentious. For example, let's say there is a statement in a primary source that says: Joe said he saw the ghost.
The article then uses that as a source and changes it to state: Joe believes in ghosts.
It might be true, but it seems like an interpretation based on the possibility that Joe might have actually lied despite his belief in ghosts or not.
"Joe said" already removes this from the person who wrote the sentence; i.e. someone other than the person writing up the incident is the one who saw the ghost. What did he mean by "saw the ghost"? An early experimenter in Roentgen Rays might see this differently from a spiritualist. If Joe is a sceptic attending a séance, he could very weel say the first statement without actually intending the second. I arrive at this without even needing to address anyone's bad faith or lies.
Ec
On 3/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
That's only true for unpublished primary sources, though. Plenty of primary sources (e.g. memoirs, diaries, etc.) are quite easily verifiable, if not always reliable.
Kirill Lokshin
On 3/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
That's only true for unpublished primary sources, though. Plenty of primary sources (e.g. memoirs, diaries, etc.) are quite easily verifiable, if not always reliable.
They're reliable if they're being treated as a primary source (Eg, Lord Kent wrote on the 14th of March 1932 that the Germans would invade the next day). Treated as a secondary source (Germany invaded England on the 15th of March 1932 [1]), they are unreliable.
Steve
[1] Lord Kent's diary, 14th of March 1932
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
That's only true for unpublished primary sources, though. Plenty of primary sources (e.g. memoirs, diaries, etc.) are quite easily verifiable, if not always reliable.
They're reliable if they're being treated as a primary source (Eg, Lord Kent wrote on the 14th of March 1932 that the Germans would invade the next day). Treated as a secondary source (Germany invaded England on the 15th of March 1932 [1]), they are unreliable.
Steve
[1] Lord Kent's diary, 14th of March 1932
Excellent example.
I wonder if we can cite personal interviews under that same pretense.
Jonathan
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
Excellent example.
I wonder if we can cite personal interviews under that same pretense.
*Published* personal interviews, of course. And preferably published by reliable sources.
Steve
On 3/17/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
That's only true for unpublished primary sources, though. Plenty of primary sources (e.g. memoirs, diaries, etc.) are quite easily verifiable, if not always reliable.
They're reliable if they're being treated as a primary source (Eg, Lord Kent wrote on the 14th of March 1932 that the Germans would invade the next day). Treated as a secondary source (Germany invaded England on the 15th of March 1932 [1]), they are unreliable.
Steve
[1] Lord Kent's diary, 14th of March 1932
Which is only part of the picture, of course. Certain primary sources are quite reliable (or as reliable as anything else we have, anyway) -- for example, Guicciardini's History of Italy is a primary source, but is generally considered to be a highly reliable one.
In any case, all sources should be cited; we can then examine their reliability on a case-by-case basis.
Kirill Lokshin
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
On 3/17/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
That's only true for unpublished primary sources, though. Plenty of primary sources (e.g. memoirs, diaries, etc.) are quite easily verifiable, if not always reliable.
They're reliable if they're being treated as a primary source (Eg, Lord Kent wrote on the 14th of March 1932 that the Germans would invade the next day). Treated as a secondary source (Germany invaded England on the 15th of March 1932 [1]), they are unreliable.
Steve
[1] Lord Kent's diary, 14th of March 1932
Which is only part of the picture, of course. Certain primary sources are quite reliable (or as reliable as anything else we have, anyway) -- for example, Guicciardini's History of Italy is a primary source, but is generally considered to be a highly reliable one.
His memoirs and/or diaries would be primary, but his History of Italy would be secondary.
Ec
On 3/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
Whaaa?
I'm hoping you mean "unpublished oral accounts" when you say "primary sources".
Primary sources are *by definition* preferable to secondary sources in most cases.
On 3/17/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Primary sources are *by definition* preferable to secondary sources in most cases.
No way. Aside from our lovely NOR policy, let me just say that the worst annoyance is some yahoo with a primary source who thinks that he now knows how to write history (and I am sure the specialists in other fields as well have run into this a million times over).
A small example: periodically you get people quoting passages selectively out of Darwin's _Descent of Man_ to prove that Darwin was a racist (by modern standards). They appeal to the original and say that they are as good as anyone else at interpretting such things. In reality, Darwin's take on race (so says the historian) needs to be highly contextualized (he is actually considerably less racist than most of his anthropological contemporaries, though just racist enough to not be considered an ethnologist) and is considerably more complex than just reading _Descent of Man_ (you can't really understand _Descent of Man_ unless you read the works to which Darwin is implicitly responding to). But none of that depth, context, and richness is clear from the primary source alone -- the work of a historian is to draw all of these things together, to make the primary source more than the text it is printed upon.
And so historians have done this, and so it is easy to write an article about _Descent of Man_ or Darwin's views on race, because most of that synthesis has already been done by others and can be easily found and referenced. Sure, pairing the synthetic approach *along* with the primary source is a great idea and for good effect. But in this case the primary source serves primarily to add luster and authenticity to the secondary interpretation, which is considerably harder to get than just reading the original.
Perhaps I sound a little territorial, here (of course the historian claims that being a historian is not easy), but I suspect that other people with other backgrounds will agree a bit on this. I'd rather have people write an encyclopedia based on secondary accounts than primary accounts -- the former will prove to be a collection of the current state of the knowledge (an encyclopedia), the latter will prove to be a collection of off-beat, missing-the-point, and thoroughly unaware and uninformed amateurisms.
I've run into this time and time again, when some self-styled researcher attempts to forge new ground on Wikipedia using their original sources, and refuses to acknowledge the difficulty of using primary sources, even after it being patiently explained more than a few times. I have to admit, it drives me a little batty -- as such I apologize for the lengthy reply!
FF
Fastfission wrote:
Perhaps I sound a little territorial, here (of course the historian claims that being a historian is not easy), but I suspect that other people with other backgrounds will agree a bit on this. I'd rather have people write an encyclopedia based on secondary accounts than primary accounts -- the former will prove to be a collection of the current state of the knowledge (an encyclopedia), the latter will prove to be a collection of off-beat, missing-the-point, and thoroughly unaware and uninformed amateurisms.
I suspect you're wrong about this being universal. It may well be true for history, but in mathematics, for example, citing primary sources is perfectly reasonable and even desirable. The difference, of course, is that history, unlike mathematics, requires context and interpretation.
Of course, even in mathematics one should be vary of those primary sources that have not passed peer review and/or public scrutiny. But then, the same applies to secondary sources as well. (People _have_ been known to attempt revisionist interpretations of mathematics. Such kookery is usually much more obvious that historical revisionism, but it does happen. See various long threads in sci.math for examples.)
On 3/17/06, Ilmari Karonen nospam@vyznev.net wrote:
Fastfission wrote:
Perhaps I sound a little territorial, here (of course the historian claims that being a historian is not easy), but I suspect that other people with other backgrounds will agree a bit on this. I'd rather have people write an encyclopedia based on secondary accounts than primary accounts -- the former will prove to be a collection of the current state of the knowledge (an encyclopedia), the latter will prove to be a collection of off-beat, missing-the-point, and thoroughly unaware and uninformed amateurisms.
I suspect you're wrong about this being universal. It may well be true for history, but in mathematics, for example, citing primary sources is perfectly reasonable and even desirable. The difference, of course, is that history, unlike mathematics, requires context and interpretation.
From what I have read, I think this would apply to mathematics as well. I
can't remeber the exact examples, but I recall reading that several key proofs of theorems recently have not been accepted, but rather, reviewers could find no errors. To do something comparable to what FF was talking about would be to quote directly from one of these proofs to support some argument - if the experts have a hard time interpreting these proofs, we can't take the word of any old editor that they have understood the proof.
Ian
"Ilmari Karonen" nospam@vyznev.net wrote in message news:441B614A.7020406@vyznev.net...
Fastfission wrote:
[snippety-snip]
I suspect you're wrong about this being universal. It may well be true for history, but in mathematics, for example, citing primary sources is perfectly reasonable and even desirable. The difference, of course, is that history, unlike mathematics, requires context and interpretation.
The difference is between recounting what someone actually said, for which you need primary sources, and deciding whether what they said was true, for which you almost always require the support of secondary sources.
Both have their place and function.
HTH HAND
True, but I think one should consult secondary sources *first* for our project, and primary sources *second*. You cannot consult a primary source without an interpretative framework, and you should be deriving that from a secondary source, in my interpretation of [[WP:NOR]]. Primary sources are great for adding color and authenticity to an article -- nobody disputes that -- but articles based solely on primary sources are chancy indeed, and no individual user's individual idiosyncratic interpretation of a primary source should trump the interpretation given in a secondary source. The people who usually insist on primary sources over secondary sources are usually the ones who think that the "establishment" opinion is bunk -- a fairly good indication of a NPOV violation or a NOR violation.
FF
On 3/20/06, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
"Ilmari Karonen" nospam@vyznev.net wrote in message news:441B614A.7020406@vyznev.net...
Fastfission wrote:
[snippety-snip]
I suspect you're wrong about this being universal. It may well be true for history, but in mathematics, for example, citing primary sources is perfectly reasonable and even desirable. The difference, of course, is that history, unlike mathematics, requires context and interpretation.
The difference is between recounting what someone actually said, for which you need primary sources, and deciding whether what they said was true, for which you almost always require the support of secondary sources.
Both have their place and function.
HTH HAND
Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 13:52:57 -0500, you wrote:
The people who usually insist on primary sources over secondary sources are usually the ones who think that the "establishment" opinion is bunk -- a fairly good indication of a NPOV violation or a NOR violation.
Even when the establishment view *is* bunk :-) Guy (JzG)
How would that apply to an article like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_2001_Census
Jay.
On 3/20/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
True, but I think one should consult secondary sources *first* for our project, and primary sources *second*. You cannot consult a primary source without an interpretative framework, and you should be deriving that from a secondary source, in my interpretation of [[WP:NOR]]. Primary sources are great for adding color and authenticity to an article -- nobody disputes that -- but articles based solely on primary sources are chancy indeed, and no individual user's individual idiosyncratic interpretation of a primary source should trump the interpretation given in a secondary source. The people who usually insist on primary sources over secondary sources are usually the ones who think that the "establishment" opinion is bunk -- a fairly good indication of a NPOV violation or a NOR violation.
FF
On 3/20/06, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
"Ilmari Karonen" nospam@vyznev.net wrote in message news:441B614A.7020406@vyznev.net...
Fastfission wrote:
[snippety-snip]
I suspect you're wrong about this being universal. It may well be true for history, but in mathematics, for example, citing primary sources is perfectly reasonable and even desirable. The difference, of course, is that history, unlike mathematics, requires context and interpretation.
The difference is between recounting what someone actually said, for which you need primary sources, and deciding whether what they said was true, for which you almost always require the support of secondary sources.
Both have their place and function.
HTH HAND
Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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{{unreferenced}}
On 3/20/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
How would that apply to an article like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_2001_Census
Jay.
On 3/20/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
True, but I think one should consult secondary sources *first* for our project, and primary sources *second*. You cannot consult a primary source without an interpretative framework, and you should be deriving that from a secondary source, in my interpretation of [[WP:NOR]]. Primary sources are great for adding color and authenticity to an article -- nobody disputes that -- but articles based solely on primary sources are chancy indeed, and no individual user's individual idiosyncratic interpretation of a primary source should trump the interpretation given in a secondary source. The people who usually insist on primary sources over secondary sources are usually the ones who think that the "establishment" opinion is bunk -- a fairly good indication of a NPOV violation or a NOR violation.
FF
On 3/20/06, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
"Ilmari Karonen" nospam@vyznev.net wrote in message news:441B614A.7020406@vyznev.net...
Fastfission wrote:
[snippety-snip]
I suspect you're wrong about this being universal. It may well be true for history, but in mathematics, for example, citing primary sources is perfectly reasonable and even desirable. The difference, of course, is that history, unlike mathematics, requires context and interpretation.
The difference is between recounting what someone actually said, for which you need primary sources, and deciding whether what they said was true, for which you almost always require the support of secondary sources.
Both have their place and function.
The use of secondary sources gives us the breadth to mention primary sources that give us the depth to an article. There is no mandatory order in which they appear as long as the order in which they appear is appropriate to the objective. It appears we agree about this with the use of different words to describe it. The use of secondary sources to rule out primary sources is equivocal, not that the primary source is useful to trump the secondary source, but it adds further to the breadth and depth to have them all referenced neutrally -- even if one gets more attention than the others. Another words, there is no need to limit the article to only "the truth." Articles should cover relevant details of knowledge used to arrive at a truth or truths.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan - "Baloney Detection Kit" http://www4.tpgi.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html
Jonathan
Fastfission wrote:
True, but I think one should consult secondary sources *first* for our project, and primary sources *second*. You cannot consult a primary source without an interpretative framework, and you should be deriving that from a secondary source, in my interpretation of [[WP:NOR]]. Primary sources are great for adding color and authenticity to an article -- nobody disputes that -- but articles based solely on primary sources are chancy indeed, and no individual user's individual idiosyncratic interpretation of a primary source should trump the interpretation given in a secondary source. The people who usually insist on primary sources over secondary sources are usually the ones who think that the "establishment" opinion is bunk -- a fairly good indication of a NPOV violation or a NOR violation.
FF
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Fastfission wrote:
True, but I think one should consult secondary sources *first* for our project, and primary sources *second*. You cannot consult a primary source without an interpretative framework, and you should be deriving that from a secondary source, in my interpretation of [[WP:NOR]]. Primary sources are great for adding color and authenticity to an article -- nobody disputes that -- but articles based solely on primary sources are chancy indeed, and no individual user's individual idiosyncratic interpretation of a primary source should trump the interpretation given in a secondary source. The people who usually insist on primary sources over secondary sources are usually the ones who think that the "establishment" opinion is bunk -- a fairly good indication of a NPOV violation or a NOR violation.
Strongly agreed. I'm doing mediation right now on some Islamic-related articles and one of the disputants is sourcing everything directly from the Quran :-(
- -- Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
"Ben McIlwain" cydeweys@gmail.com wrote in message news:441F19FC.3010801@gmail.com...
Fastfission wrote:
True, but I think one should consult secondary sources *first* for our project, and primary sources *second*. You cannot consult a primary source without an interpretative framework, and you should be deriving that from a secondary source, in my interpretation of [[WP:NOR]].
[snip]
Strongly agreed. I'm doing mediation right now on some Islamic-related articles and one of the disputants is sourcing everything directly from the Quran :-(
Well...IFF the dispute is over what the Quran says on a certain subject, then this is entirely justified.
OTOH interpreting the Quran seems to be a full-time job for near enough every single Muslim, so if they're arguing over interpretation, they need to be sourcing those different interpretations.
I know we have the Quran at Wikisource: do we have the various interpretations that have appropriate licences also?
On 3/21/06, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
Well...IFF the dispute is over what the Quran says on a certain subject, then this is entirely justified.
OTOH interpreting the Quran seems to be a full-time job for near enough every single Muslim, so if they're arguing over interpretation, they need to be sourcing those different interpretations.
The lack of a clear line between "fact" and "interpretation" is never more evident than with scripture, but it is only an extreme variation of the sorts of things one is involved with in most historical texts. (And even scientific texts, with all of their attempts at standardization and specialization of language, can be quite ambiguous at times.)
Appealing to a primary source when the question is, "is the quote X or Y?" is of course useful and a basic part of fact checking. But I doubt that's the issue here (it rarely is, though in cases of translation even that aspect can be difficult to ferret out).
There is an anthropologist whose work I enjoy who talks about the use of scientific testimony in front of a jury and the ways in which certain forms of testimony, when presented in certain ways, make juries feel that they are cable of understanding a very difficult concept when they are in fact not. For example, if you juxtapose two brain scans which look very different, one which says "normal" underneath it and one which says "the client's", most jurors will think that it provides clear evidence to the client's brain abnormality. An expert on brains though would know that superficial analysis like this, relying only on two images at that (there are many types of "normal"), is practically worthless, and certainly that someone without training in neuroscience is not qualified to even make sense of such images. The anthropologist calls this sort of evidence "expert images," in that they give one the impression of being an expert, though real experts find them unclear and contestable. Anyway, I bring this up as just an analogy -- I think primary sources often serve as "expert sources" or something along those lines for Wikipedia users, which is why I am so cautious about people using them.
If we stick with secondary sources, then we dodge the problem alltogether. Furthermore, if Wikipedia cites a secondary source, it will never be "wrong" (viz. Nature) in a factual sense -- our greatest sin would then be one of picking the wrong sources or giving too much attention to marginal ones (which is a real question in and of itself, of course).
FF
On 3/21/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
abnormality. An expert on brains though would know that superficial analysis like this, relying only on two images at that (there are many types of "normal"), is practically worthless, and certainly that someone without training in neuroscience is not qualified to even make sense of such images. The anthropologist calls this sort of evidence "expert images," in that they give one the impression of being an expert, though real experts find them unclear and contestable. Anyway, I bring this up as just an analogy -- I think primary sources often serve as "expert sources" or something along those lines for Wikipedia users, which is why I am so cautious about people using them.
This is one of the scarier things about juries. I saw a documentary once that detailed a real murder case with expert evidence to do with DNA testing (and various other sorts) some remains after a couple of years. Members of the jury were interviewed afterwards, and made remarks like "oh, I didn't see how the evidence could have lasted that long"...even though the expert witness had just been telling them that it could.
All of which is to say that in Wikipedia we shouldn't ever be attempting to determine the actual worth of something prima facie - instead, we should only be including the comments of experts.
Steve
If we stick with secondary sources, then we dodge the problem alltogether. Furthermore, if Wikipedia cites a secondary source, it will never be "wrong" (viz. Nature) in a factual sense -- our greatest sin would then be one of picking the wrong sources or giving too much attention to marginal ones (which is a real question in and of itself, of course).
FF _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Steve Bennett wrote:
All of which is to say that in Wikipedia we shouldn't ever be attempting to determine the actual worth of something prima facie - instead, we should only be including the comments of experts.
Would you consider the qualifiers of presentation, publication, or testimony based on the credentials of experts?
For example, compare the scholarly method against scientific methods for authenticity. The later does not really "comment" about the content, but the former does.
On 3/20/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
True, but I think one should consult secondary sources *first* for our project, and primary sources *second*. You cannot consult a primary source without an interpretative framework, and you should be deriving that from a secondary source, in my interpretation of [[WP:NOR]]. Primary sources are great for adding color and authenticity to an article -- nobody disputes that -- but articles based solely on primary sources are chancy indeed, and no individual user's individual idiosyncratic interpretation of a primary source should trump the interpretation given in a secondary source. The people who usually insist on primary sources over secondary sources are usually the ones who think that the "establishment" opinion is bunk -- a fairly good indication of a NPOV violation or a NOR violation.
I'm just less impressed than most by the necessity of relying on the expertise of experts. I have to admit that I do think you're being territorial. There's little reason for the contextualization and interpretation that historians do to not happen on Wikipedia. And that doesn't require original research. in theory, if historians are basing their judgment purely on context and not personal biases, then the interlinking of Wikipedia should be a sufficient equivalent.
But it's not a huge deal to me. I just personally would rather rely on my own judgment than be forced to see the world through the interpretation of others.
Fastfission wrote:
On 3/17/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Primary sources are *by definition* preferable to secondary sources in most cases.
No way. Aside from our lovely NOR policy, let me just say that the worst annoyance is some yahoo with a primary source who thinks that he now knows how to write history (and I am sure the specialists in other fields as well have run into this a million times over).
A small example: periodically you get people quoting passages selectively out of Darwin's _Descent of Man_ to prove that Darwin was a racist (by modern standards). They appeal to the original and say that they are as good as anyone else at interpretting such things. In reality, Darwin's take on race (so says the historian) needs to be highly contextualized (he is actually considerably less racist than most of his anthropological contemporaries, though just racist enough to not be considered an ethnologist) and is considerably more complex than just reading _Descent of Man_ (you can't really understand _Descent of Man_ unless you read the works to which Darwin is implicitly responding to).
If Darwin was responding to the work of others than his book can no longer be considered a primary source.
But none of that depth, context, and richness is clear from the primary source alone -- the work of a historian is to draw all of these things together, to make the primary source more than the text it is printed upon.
And so historians have done this, and so it is easy to write an article about _Descent of Man_ or Darwin's views on race, because most of that synthesis has already been done by others and can be easily found and referenced. Sure, pairing the synthetic approach *along* with the primary source is a great idea and for good effect. But in this case the primary source serves primarily to add luster and authenticity to the secondary interpretation, which is considerably harder to get than just reading the original.
I think you have it all backwards. I do agree that reading the original is often much more difficult, and that secondary works fulfill a simplifying function. But any secondary interpretation imposes additional views, or creates distortions of the original material, or begins the cherry-picking process.
Perhaps I sound a little territorial, here (of course the historian claims that being a historian is not easy), but I suspect that other people with other backgrounds will agree a bit on this. I'd rather have people write an encyclopedia based on secondary accounts than primary accounts -- the former will prove to be a collection of the current state of the knowledge (an encyclopedia), the latter will prove to be a collection of off-beat, missing-the-point, and thoroughly unaware and uninformed amateurisms.
Oh! It seems as though this approach only reinforces the socally acceptable POV.
I've run into this time and time again, when some self-styled researcher attempts to forge new ground on Wikipedia using their original sources, and refuses to acknowledge the difficulty of using primary sources, even after it being patiently explained more than a few times. I have to admit, it drives me a little batty -- as such I apologize for the lengthy reply!
What you are seeking is more than a simple acknowledgement of the difficulty of using primary sources. When you put this in terms of patient explanations you are going much further and presuming him to be wrong.
Ec
On 3/21/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
If Darwin was responding to the work of others than his book can no longer be considered a primary source.
"Primary" and "secondary" refer to how information is used. And most secondary sources become primary sources over time, anyway (Darwin's _Origin_ is now taken less as a scientific work than as an artifact of the 19th century evolutionary thought).
I think you have it all backwards. I do agree that reading the original is often much more difficult, and that secondary works fulfill a simplifying function. But any secondary interpretation imposes additional views, or creates distortions of the original material, or begins the cherry-picking process.
Of course it does. The goal is that the *experts* should be the ones doing the distortion and cherry-picking of the source material, not the hundreds of thousands of Wikipedians. That's the point of WP:NOR.
Oh! It seems as though this approach only reinforces the socally acceptable POV.
It gives it primacy, yes. But that's the point of WP:NPOV. We're not a place to launch theories, we are just a mirror.
What you are seeking is more than a simple acknowledgement of the difficulty of using primary sources. When you put this in terms of patient explanations you are going much further and presuming him to be wrong.
I don't quite follow you on this part. But if you're talking about the courtroom analogy, it is just an analogy. The book itself, if you are curious, is Joseph Dumit, "Picturing Personhood." It's quite good.
FF
On 3/21/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/21/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
If Darwin was responding to the work of others than his book can no longer be considered a primary source.
"Primary" and "secondary" refer to how information is used. And most secondary sources become primary sources over time, anyway (Darwin's _Origin_ is now taken less as a scientific work than as an artifact of the 19th century evolutionary thought).
I think you have it all backwards. I do agree that reading the original is often much more difficult, and that secondary works fulfill a simplifying function. But any secondary interpretation imposes additional views, or creates distortions of the original material, or begins the cherry-picking process.
Of course it does. The goal is that the *experts* should be the ones doing the distortion and cherry-picking of the source material, not the hundreds of thousands of Wikipedians. That's the point of WP:NOR.
That might be a side effect on the ban on original research, but it's not the point. The point of banning original research is to ensure verifiability.
Having "experts" cherry-pick and distort (and I know you're being facetious here) may be your goal, but it's certainly not a consensus view.
I don't agree with the concept that Wikipedia's quality is dependent on there being experts to filter the content, whether as part of the editing process or through a ban on primary sources. I've found that consensus editing does an equivalently good job of filtering, especially when the line between expert and non-expert is deliberately left vague. For example, in articles about musical technique, scholars, practicing musicians, and music teachers all may be considered experts or non-experts considering what metric to apply, but all have important views and information to impart. Similarly with politics and yes, even history to some degree (depends especially how recent. I'd trust the analysis of medieval European history more from someone who can read medieval Latin.)
Now, string theory or elliptical curves or anaplerotic reactions are another matter.
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
How is http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/statutes/title42/42-4/42-4-15.HTM "hard if not impossible to verify"?
It seems to me to fall back in part on the nature of the claim. "Interpretation" often crossed over into original research, but quoting can go both ways. If the quotes selected are used to illustrate a point which can be found in secondary literature, that seems fine to me (i.e., quoting directly from _Origin of Species_ to explain Darwin's thoughts on some point in a way which would not be controversial to anyone), but cherry-picking quotations or using quotations to support points not in secondary literature is original research (i.e. quoting directly from _Origin of Species_ to support your own, idiosyncratic and unorthodox interpretation).
If the source is published, quoting from it should be fine, as long as the point of the quoting is not problematic and one could ultimately find the same argument made about the source (implicitly or explicitly) in secondary literature.
FF
On 3/17/06, Jonathan dzonatas@dzonux.net wrote:
Hello,
If someone uses a primary source, should the context be quoted directly? If it is not, would that constitute original research? Another words, if someone takes the primary source and interprets it to his or her own need, it does seem like a re-creation of a primary source. It's like original research in an attempt to make the primary source a secondary source.
I've seen this kind of discussion before. The result was that all scholarly work is always based on secondary scholastic sources. That does not give an answer to the primary sources as above, but it does shed some insight into non-scholarly source creep.
Feedback is appreciated.
Jonathan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fastfission wrote:
It seems to me to fall back in part on the nature of the claim. "Interpretation" often crossed over into original research, but quoting can go both ways. If the quotes selected are used to illustrate a point which can be found in secondary literature, that seems fine to me (i.e., quoting directly from _Origin of Species_ to explain Darwin's thoughts on some point in a way which would not be controversial to anyone), but cherry-picking quotations or using quotations to support points not in secondary literature is original research (i.e. quoting directly from _Origin of Species_ to support your own, idiosyncratic and unorthodox interpretation).
If the source is published, quoting from it should be fine, as long as the point of the quoting is not problematic and one could ultimately find the same argument made about the source (implicitly or explicitly) in secondary literature.
It's hard to imagine a quotation from anywhere that isn't cherry-picked. Reviewing Darwin's work to differentiate between what was used in secondary literature, and what is an original usage is itself as much original research as the result. Either Darwin is a quotable author or he isn't; there's no point to creating a large amount of weasel room that would allow us to opt out when what he says does not conform to one's individual point of view.
Ec
On 3/21/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It's hard to imagine a quotation from anywhere that isn't cherry-picked. Reviewing Darwin's work to differentiate between what was used in secondary literature, and what is an original usage is itself as much original research as the result. Either Darwin is a quotable author or he isn't; there's no point to creating a large amount of weasel room that would allow us to opt out when what he says does not conform to one's individual point of view.
Well it depends on the claims, of course. It is pretty easy for someone familiar with the secondary literature to spot Darwin quoted out of context or a misrepresentation of Darwin's views (according secondary literature, of course). The question really only becomes absolutely pressing when people try to press controversial or unorthodox opinions through on the basis of appeals to primary source. It is an unfortunate reality that OR is really only visible when there is something to contrast it with and someone available to do the constrasting.
The nature of copyright makes Wikipedia editors participate in OS (Original Synthesis)every time they write something up, and certainly some OR slips in there unconsciously, no matter who is writing the article.
FF
Jonathan wrote:
If someone uses a primary source, should the context be quoted directly? If it is not, would that constitute original research? Another words, if someone takes the primary source and interprets it to his or her own need, it does seem like a re-creation of a primary source. It's like original research in an attempt to make the primary source a secondary source.
When you take a primary source and paraphrase it or interpret it it is no longer that primary source. It is original research, and you interpretation may mean something entirely different from what the source intended.
Ec