medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Marjorie, it's customary when quoting more than a few words from a particular source to give a location where the quoted matter can be found, With a book one gives at least the title, the place of publication and date (unless these latter are obvious), and the page or pages on which the matter referred is located (unless these are made unnecessary by the form of presentation, e.g. a calendar). With a website one gives a URL. The reason is the same in both instances: to allow one's reader to verify the accuracy of the quotation and/or to evaluate the context in which that matter appears. This is an ordinary courtesy and the failure to extend it can be irksome.
In this case, in a communication bearing on the name of St Julian's Church in Norwich, England, you sourced quoted matter as coming from "the website of the church". Because you did not provide the URL for that website, I could not quickly go to it myself for the routine purposes outlined above. Instead, I spent a very frustrating fifteen minutes or so trying to find a website "of the church" (i.e. of St Julian's in Norwich, England) containing the matter you quoted.
When, after a polite request from me, you did provide the URL, that information enabled me to verify a hunch that I had been forming during these minutes of frustration, namely that the matter you had quoted did NOT come from a website of that church and that your characterization of your source had been misleading. Hence the "Aha". I regret any mystification caused by that utterance and am grateful for the opportunity you have given me to explain it.
While we are here, I wonder whether it is your customary procedure when someone asks you to provide a verifiable reference for something you have said in the course of one of these discussions to respond by changing the subject line of the thread as you did in this instance (i.e. FROM: Julian of Norwich TO: Website requested by JDillon)? Some might think a request of this nature to be pertinent to the thread in question, as of course would also be the reference itself when provided in response. Putting that response under another heading removes it from that thread and in effect hides it from anyone subsequently following the thread in the list's archives. Some might also think that the new subject line chosen by you unnecessarily personalizes a reasonable request for a better identification of your source.
Best,
John Dillon
On Friday, January 18, 2008, at 8:28 pm, Marjorie Greene wrote:
>
> John, I don't quite understand the "Aha." You asked for the URL, I
> gave it. The info clearly refers to the church located in Norwich of
> the UK as no church or anything else was bombed in a blitz in the US.
> Do you think that the info is incorrect because it is from a website
> for a church in Georgia?
> MG
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