Dear Don,
I was interested to see that, even as you denounce footnotes, your article denouncing the Bauhaus employs three references: one to Wikipedia, one to a 600-word web article, and one a self-citation to one of your own books.
That is not strong research. In fact, if that essay been submitted by one of my students, it would have received a grade of "F" for that alone. Weak research additionally mars the content. If a student wrote that the influence of the Bauhaus today "is muted by the heavy artistic emphasis," I would demand evidence to support that allegation, which is not an "opinion," but rather a claim of formal causality. How do you know that it is "artistic emphasis" that hinders influence, rather than some other factor? For example, perhaps it was the emergence of plastics that affected Bauhaus-type styling, because the molasses-like flow of hot plastics in a mould does not easily afford production of its favoured crisp geometric forms. For that matter, how do you know that the Bauhaus is no longer influential? Your own engineering education would likely not have mentioned it, but does that necessarily hold true in fields like architecture or industrial design? Is the Bauhaus no longer mentioned there, and if so, how do you know? Evidence, please. Your own opinion is, of course, evidence, but it belongs to the category of "n=1" — a test sample size of one subject.
Speaking of evidence, your email to the list (attached) claims that footnotes are "relatively rare" in design writing, mentioning three instances by name. This statement is akin to a footnote, in that it permits your reader to follow up. I did so, and here are the results:
International Journal of Design, August 2017 (in-text citation style) Article 1: 53 references; Article 2: 87 references; Article 3: 67 references; Article 4: 56 references Average: 65.75 citations per article
She Ji, Autumn, 2017 (footnote style) Article 1, 69 footnotes; Article 2, 49 footnotes; Article 3, 30 footnotes; Article 4, 33 footnotes; Article 5, 141 footnotes; Article 6, 29 footnotes. Average: 59.5 citations per article
CHI '17, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Selectively examining the first few "Doctoral Consortium" papers found: Paper 1, 34 footnotes; Paper 2, 9 footnotes; Paper 3, 18 footnotes; Paper 4, 14 footnotes; Paper 5, 6 footnotes; Paper 6; 17 footnotes. Average: 23.5 citations per article
CHI is, of course, not a journal, but rather offers reports on active research projects. which may be shorter than journal articles. Therefore I calculated the number of citations per page of writing, as follows:
International Journal of Design, August 2017 Article 1, 15 pages, Article 2, 16 pages, Article 3, 12 pages, Article 4, 11 pages; Article 5, 16 pages; Average length, 17.2 pages, giving 3.4 citations per page of writing
She Ji, Autumn, 2017
Article 1, 15 pages; Article 2, 20 pages; Article 3, 12 pages; Article 4, 18 pages, Article 5, 19 pages, Article 6, 7 pages; Average length 15.2 pages, giving 3.9 citations per page of writing.
CHI '17, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Doctoral Consortium) Paper 1, 6 pages; Paper 2, 4 pages; Paper 3, 6 pages; Paper 4, 5 pages; Paper 5, 4 pages; Paper 6, 5 pages; Average length 5 pages, giving 4.7 citations per page of writing.
Obviously, your claim that these figures are "relatively" rare demands a comparison. Choosing the Journal of Design History as a promising example of contrasting "narrowly focussed scholarly" history writing, I found:
Journal of Design History, September 2016
Article 1 (15 pages), 71 footnotes; Article 2 (16 pages) 69 footnotes; Article 3 (13 pages) 56 footnotes; Article 4 (15 pages) 42 footnotes, Article 5 (14 pages) 56 footnotes; Average length 14.6 pages, average number of citations 58.5, giving an average of 4.0 citations per page of writing.
Clearly, this is not a statistically valid study of the relative abundance of footnotes in different professions (though such studies do exist). This is simply exploratory snooping by a suspicious reader, to verify — or in this case apparently disprove — a factual claim.
In my fast survey, I was struck by the footnotes in CHI'17, which are entirely non-historical, and yet serve precisely the purpose described by Anthony Grafton: they support factual claims with evidence, in this case data taken from commercial data sheets and previously published studies. Without such footnotes, readers could have no idea how or even whether the new work builds on previous efforts. The alternative, as you appear to be asking your readers to do, is to simply trust the writer and take what it written at face value, on faith.
Ironically, this approach returns us to the Bauhaus, because the writing of early Modernist designers also uses no footnotes. When Adolf Loos, a forerunner to the Bauhaus, asserted in 1910 that "ornament is crime," he spoke as a visionary. "I have discovered the following truth," he wrote, "and present it to the world: cultural evolution is the equivalent of the removal of Ornament from articles in daily use." No footnotes are needed for a visionary who can, unaided, perceive such truth.
Are visionaries still needed in design? Yes, of course. But let us not neglect the progress of "normal science" as seen in CHI and elsewhere, where careful craftsmanship examines assumptions, builds tests, and reaches conclusions. Publication of such craftsmanship permits others to build upon it. To quote Wikipedia quoting Isaac Newton (1675), "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
Yours truly,Heidi
From: Don Norman <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2018 6:02 PM
Subject: Re: On footnotes
Two footnotes on my essay on footnotes.
*Footnote 1*. My original piece was about two topics: footnotes and that
Paul Kolers was dead. I decided to separate it into two contributions,
for they were two, unrelated topics. Alas, in my editing, I was
(characteristically) sloppy. Apologies.
*Footnote 2*. I have now carefully read Grafton's article (thanks, Ken). I
hereby denounce it as irrelevant.
*Footnote 2a*: To help you calibrate that statement, recall that I am the
person that has denounced the Bauhaus as irrelevant to much of today's
design.
Grafton writes as a historian, where careful writing about historical
statements and actions do require justification, and where there are
conflicting historical claims, notes about the conflict. So for this sort
of writing, footnotes are important.
That is certainly not what I do, nor is it what most designers do in their
writing. Note that footnotes are relatively rare in the journal
publications in such works as International J. of Design, *She Ji*, HCI
publications in CHI (if you don't what those acronyms stand for, it's OK,
because that means that the kind of scholarship that goes in there is not
your kind).* (Footnote mark)
*Footnote 2b.* It is perfectly sensible that we have multiple kinds of
designers so that pronouncements relevant to one group might very well and
properly be irrelevant to others.**
*Footnote 2b.1* . Hence my claim of irrelevance for the Bauhaus was
applauded by some and derided and denounced by others. In my opinion, both
groups were correct. In my denouncement, I was clearly and specifically
discussing the kind of design that I and my colleagues do today. I respect
the works of the others -- it simply is not what I do. There should be
room for multiple styles and opinions.
Grafton's article is written as if his kind of erudite, citation-heavy
footnote is all that there is. He is being a narrowly focussed scholarly
historian in his implication that this is what footnotes are all about.
I am careful to acknowledge ideas of others and to give credit. But my
ideas are my opinions, and so I have no need to justify my opinions with
lots of historical references. Where I have borrowed from, added to or am
disagreeing with the opinions of others, then I do cite them. Most of my
footnotes used to be asides: elaborations on the text, sometimes contrary
thoughts, sometimes side comments. it is these that I decided should
either be worthy of being directly in the text or being thrown away.
Today, most of my non-citational text is to comment on the citation itself.
Enough
don
--
Don Norman
Prof. and Director, DesignLab, UC San Diego
[log in to unmask] designlab.ucsd.edu/ www.jnd.org <http://www.jnd.org/>
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