Having spent several years editing and annotating (with two colleagues) a heretofore unpublished manuscript, I must support going back to the original sources. Accuracy is paramount, and by looking at the original, you may find more pertinent information that obtains to your work. Carl is right. Too many breadcrumbs. As a historian and an archaeologist, I could not ethically do otherwise if the original source can be obtained.
Jane L. Brown
Anthropology & Sociology
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee, NC 28723
Office telephone: 828.227.2444
FAX: 828.227.7061
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From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carl Steen [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 8:03 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: scholarly standards
I have been complaining about this for years, especially regarding archaeologist's use of secondary, tertiary and even greater removed historical sources (ie, Smith cites Jones, who cited Brown's interpretation of Green, which was wrong to begin with). It's so common however that I fear no one really cares...
Carl Steen
-----Original Message-----
From: geoff carver <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, Jul 21, 2011 7:51 am
Subject: scholarly standards
I've just been reading someone's PhD dissertation, where second-hand
references are made to Foucault, Heidegger, Husserl and a philosopher by the
name of McTaggart (about A- and B-series time).
None of these seems to have been consulted, just referenced via other
archaeological texts. I've noticed basically the same thing happening with
references to Lyell, Darwin, Hutton, Steno, etc., and wondered what other
people think about this. Should we take some other archaeologist's word
about what Heidegger meant, or even what was published in a possibly bad
translation of Heidegger, or should we expect archaeologists, as scholars
and as people who dig things up, to go to the original source, if only to
confirm that the accuracy of the secondary source?
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