User:Dpbsmith

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Personal website at dpbsmith.com

AKA

First edit 06:11, 6 Sep 2003, to Jack London

Traditionally, encyclopedias are not well-referenced. They sometimes provide what might be called "selected bibliographies," things the writer thinks you might want to read next. But references, in the sense of "here's where I got it," no.

Many, but by no means all of the articles in the EB 11th have a set of contributor's initials (which you can look up in a table). Odd, since it doesn't save that much space; the editors don't really want you to focus on the contributor. Well, knowing the name of the contributor is not that helpful anyway. When it's someone like Ernest Rutherford, well, you probably can figure they knew what they were talking about. For the rest, their credibility basically rests on the jumble of letters after their name and the miniature who's-who-like description.

Have I ever heard of "Arthur Dendy, D. Sc., F.R.S., F.Z.S., F.L.S., Professor of Zoology in King's College, London, Zoological Secretary of the Linnean [sic] Society of London. Author of memoirs on systematic zoology, comparative anatomy, embryology, &c?" No. Do I think he knows his stuff when it comes to sponges? Well, yeah, sure, sounds like it, probably. Most of my profs didn't have that many letters after their name. I have no way of knowing whether he was a POV-pusher, though, and you'd better believe you can have letters after your name and still be a POV-pusher. Big-time.

I haven't been following the "bad reference/good reference" stuff but I find the whole idea baffling. The purpose of a reference is very simple. You're telling people where you got your information. It's not a question of good or bad, it's a simple statement of fact. If I got my "facts" from The National Enquirer, and I say I got them from the National Enquirer and I give the date and page number, that's a good reference. The only bad reference would be an untruthful reference—if I got them from the National Enquirer but said they were from The New York Times.

And a specific reference is verifiable. If I lie about it, I will eventually get caught. If someone says that The New York Times published an article about a 400-pound eight-year-old girl who was inseminated by a space alien and gave birth to a two-headed unicorn, on page 7, July 16th, 2000, well as it happens I can go online courtesy of my local public library and find out in about sixty seconds whether there's really such an article. (I'll leave you in suspense as to the answer).

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Wikipedia