Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 17, No. 412.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
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Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 08:22:15 +0000
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: link anxiety?
I am wondering if anyone has written about what we might call "link
anxiety" and the rhetorical preparations one might make to avoid it. I
would like to find writings to use for or against the following
proposition: within a scholarly argument, a link rather than a traditional
citation is desirable from the author's perspective when it is to material
of an evidential rather than argumentative kind. When I need for some
reason to signal to the reader that another person's argument is relevant,
I will tend not to want the reader to go off to that argument and engage
with it, not at least right then. I would prefer, rather, to use a citation
that signals the value I think the other argument has, e.g. "some think
that..." (not saying who these clearly misguided individuals are); "Fish
argues that..." (not saying in what book or essay, since if right it only
backs up what I am saying, if wrong doesn't need to be considered, and we
all know in any case what sort of thing he does); "Smith, Philological
Studies in Ancient Accadian, vol. 2, pp. 361-5" (go here if you are REALLY
interested, but if you absolutely needed to know, I would quote the text in
full, so don't bother). Evidential material is, however, a different
matter: a link into a lexicon or commentary would be fine; we all know what
to expect and so are already prepared.
Or is it a matter of the format of the material -- continuous prose (cite)
vs brief chunks (link to)?
Yours,
WM
Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
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