Criticism and Published Material

Tim Simmons · 1st June 2006, 03:05 PM

Personally I have found many of the much heralded authors works rather wanting and often limited. Are essays in history really academic research in the field? I often feel I am led a trail to a dead end, particularly when the view on rather historic subjects is narrow and self convinced.

VANDOO · 1st June 2006, 04:29 PM

THE REALITY OF ALL REFRENCES IS THAT THE MORE BOOKS YOU HAVE READ AND THE MORE KNOWLEGE YOU REMEMBER THE HARDER IT IS TO FIND NEW INFORMATION IN A NEW PUBLICATION. IN ORDER TO WRITE A BOOK ON A SUBJECT YOU MUST USE INFORMATION THAT IS ALREADY KNOWN AND OFTEN PUBLISHED OR IT IS GOING TO BE A VERY SHORT BOOK

. IF THE REFRENCES ARE GIVEN IN THE BOOK IT IS NOT PLAGERISIM BUT OFTEN A AUTHOR MIGHT DRAW FROM HIS OWN KNOWLEGE NOT REMEMBERING WHERE HE GOT THE INFORMATION. THAT CAN BE UNIENTIONAL PLAGERISM OR JUST LAZY NOT WANTING TO GO THRU EVERYTHING LOOKING FOR THE INFORMATION OR JUST NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND IT. SO THE MORE KNOWLEGE YOU HAVE THE HARDER IT IS TO GET NEW INFORMATION FROM A NEW PUBLICATION BUT YOU MIGHT GET TO SEE LOTS OF NEW PICTURES.

SO A FELLOW WITH LESS KNOWLEGE IS MORE LIKELY TO GET HIS MONEYS WORTH OF KNOWLEGE THAN THE WELL READ SCHOLAR

THE SCHOLAR ON THE OTHER HAND MAY HAVE EVERY PUBLISHED REFRENCE ON A PARTICULAR SUBJECT AND WILL REMEMBER MOST OF THE INFORMATION HAVING READ IT MANY TIMES IN DIFFERENT BOOKS OVER THE YEARS. SO NEW PROVEN INFORMATION IS HIGHLY VALUED BY THE SCHOLAR BUT IS HARD TO PROVE OR COME BY UNTIL WE CAN PERFECT THE TIME MACHINE

Rivkin · 1st June 2006, 06:13 PM

Nice, well all members of academia have their favorite stories about reviewing process.

In my experience most of "impression negative" reviews usually contain the following, very often all in one set of reviews:

a. The paper is wrong. Since usually reviewer have not really read it, such review usually accomponied by some general statements like the "the method is unsound".
b. No one gives a damn about it. "not of interest to the general community", "used to be a hot subject, but in the past years...". Again there is really no reliable indicator to measure the public's interest in unpublished article, so its a safe bet for the reviewer.
c. It was already done. Again, the reviewer did not really read it, so he will either quote some unrelated article or will just refer you to "works of leading experts in the field".

Now our community is different. First of all there are very few books on our subject and even fewer of them are good. Second our science here, in my opinion, is intrinsically subjective. We usually can not use mathematics and produce "the probability of this sword to be from XVI century is 1 minuls less than 1 in a million". Most of our arguments would not be usable in court. For examples one just has to remember Oakeshott's debucle of accepted positions on origins/dating of certain swords. While we can form an accepted consensus, I doubt we can ever speak of proving something. To top all this, we don't have a truly professional, specialized journal with a strict peer review policy. Most of the articles we use are published in all kinds of historical journals; also they are not being reviewed by specialists in arms in armour, but by specialists in history. Most of us are amateurs (well I am).

The results are there for display.

1st June 2006, 03:05 PM	#1
Tim Simmons Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: What is still UK Posts: 5,844	Personally I have found many of the much heralded authors works rather wanting and often limited. Are essays in history really academic research in the field? I often feel I am led a trail to a dead end, particularly when the view on rather historic subjects is narrow and self convinced.

1st June 2006, 04:29 PM	#2
VANDOO (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: OKLAHOMA, USA Posts: 3,138	THE REALITY OF ALL REFRENCES IS THAT THE MORE BOOKS YOU HAVE READ AND THE MORE KNOWLEGE YOU REMEMBER THE HARDER IT IS TO FIND NEW INFORMATION IN A NEW PUBLICATION. IN ORDER TO WRITE A BOOK ON A SUBJECT YOU MUST USE INFORMATION THAT IS ALREADY KNOWN AND OFTEN PUBLISHED OR IT IS GOING TO BE A VERY SHORT BOOK . IF THE REFRENCES ARE GIVEN IN THE BOOK IT IS NOT PLAGERISIM BUT OFTEN A AUTHOR MIGHT DRAW FROM HIS OWN KNOWLEGE NOT REMEMBERING WHERE HE GOT THE INFORMATION. THAT CAN BE UNIENTIONAL PLAGERISM OR JUST LAZY NOT WANTING TO GO THRU EVERYTHING LOOKING FOR THE INFORMATION OR JUST NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND IT. SO THE MORE KNOWLEGE YOU HAVE THE HARDER IT IS TO GET NEW INFORMATION FROM A NEW PUBLICATION BUT YOU MIGHT GET TO SEE LOTS OF NEW PICTURES. SO A FELLOW WITH LESS KNOWLEGE IS MORE LIKELY TO GET HIS MONEYS WORTH OF KNOWLEGE THAN THE WELL READ SCHOLAR THE SCHOLAR ON THE OTHER HAND MAY HAVE EVERY PUBLISHED REFRENCE ON A PARTICULAR SUBJECT AND WILL REMEMBER MOST OF THE INFORMATION HAVING READ IT MANY TIMES IN DIFFERENT BOOKS OVER THE YEARS. SO NEW PROVEN INFORMATION IS HIGHLY VALUED BY THE SCHOLAR BUT IS HARD TO PROVE OR COME BY UNTIL WE CAN PERFECT THE TIME MACHINE

1st June 2006, 06:13 PM	#3
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	Nice, well all members of academia have their favorite stories about reviewing process. In my experience most of "impression negative" reviews usually contain the following, very often all in one set of reviews: a. The paper is wrong. Since usually reviewer have not really read it, such review usually accomponied by some general statements like the "the method is unsound". b. No one gives a damn about it. "not of interest to the general community", "used to be a hot subject, but in the past years...". Again there is really no reliable indicator to measure the public's interest in unpublished article, so its a safe bet for the reviewer. c. It was already done. Again, the reviewer did not really read it, so he will either quote some unrelated article or will just refer you to "works of leading experts in the field". Now our community is different. First of all there are very few books on our subject and even fewer of them are good. Second our science here, in my opinion, is intrinsically subjective. We usually can not use mathematics and produce "the probability of this sword to be from XVI century is 1 minuls less than 1 in a million". Most of our arguments would not be usable in court. For examples one just has to remember Oakeshott's debucle of accepted positions on origins/dating of certain swords. While we can form an accepted consensus, I doubt we can ever speak of proving something. To top all this, we don't have a truly professional, specialized journal with a strict peer review policy. Most of the articles we use are published in all kinds of historical journals; also they are not being reviewed by specialists in arms in armour, but by specialists in history. Most of us are amateurs (well I am). The results are there for display.