[WikiEN-l] Re: Example vs. Original research

[Daniel P. B. Smith]

On Jul 23, 2005, at 6:21 PM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:
> Impressive responses. One point: OR is often used as a
> an excuse to squash certain debated points, without
> allowing them to devlop (including citing sources).
> A silly example might be something like "go find some
> source for your notion that the world is round, and
> come back when you do so." Such source can then be
> debated for a while.

I, and everyone else, frequently insert stuff that is "well known"  
without citing sources. "Beethoven is widely regarded as one of the  
greatest of composers..." "f = m * a"...

However, whenever a statement, however obvious, is seriously  
challenged, I take it seriously.

IF something is TRULY well known, it is usually EASY to find a  
source. When someone says cite a source, I just find one and cite it.

And the article is the better for it.

Let's take "The world is round." I have just spent ten minutes  
browsing my bookshelves looking for the clearest citation. A popular  
book by Menzel entitled Astronomy... nope. "A Field Guide to the  
Stars and Planets?" Nope. "Norton's Star Atlas?" Nope. All of them  
give the radius of the earth... but fail to say in so many words that  
the world is round, because, well, everybody knows that.

Aha. I have it.

"The earth is approximately an oblate spheroid (a sphere flattened at  
the poles.... For many navigational purposes the earth is assumed to  
be a sphere, without intolerable error."

There you go. _American Practical Navigator: An Epitome of  
Navigation_, originally by Nathaniel Bowditch, LL. D. 1966--Corrected  
Print. Published by the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office. U. S.  
Government Printing Office, 1966. Pp. 62-63.

And that settles it. Nobody can argue that _that_ book doesn't  
contain _that_ sentence. Anyone can check it out. It does. Any  
argument about the authority of the book is beside the point. It's an  
objective fact that that book contains that sentence.

Once I've cited the source, I can replace the sentence in the article  
that says "the world is round" with the sentence "The U. S. Naval  
Oceanographic Office states that for many navigational purposes the  
earth is assumed to be a sphere, without intolerable error." Problem  
solved.

It's now up to anyone who disagrees with it to cite _their_ source.  
It's up to the reader to judge which sources are reliable. If the  
reader trusts John Cleves Symmes, Jr. more than he or she trusts the  
U. S. Naval Oceanographic Office, that's their prerogative.


--
Jean is going to be bicycling 83 miles in the Pan Mass Challenge in  
August, raising money for cancer research. Her profile is at http:// 
www.pmc.org/mypmc/profiles.asp?Section=story&eGiftID=JS0417