Heidi
You gave me an F. Not the first F I have ever received. I am sorry to be
such a failure.
My opinion on the Bauhaus remains my opinion. Your analysis of footnotes
leaves me unmoved. Let me explain both.
First. I stated -- but evidently not clearly enough -- that different
disciplines have very different requirements. I am aware that for many
disciplines, the Bauhaus was -- and still is -- very important. I was
stating that for the disciplines I am in, the science-based part of design
such as interaction design, the Bauhaus is not only irrelevant, but
antithetical to our insistence on designing for the understanding,
functions, utility, and ease of use of the people who use the end product.
Although I have found Bauhaus writings which hint at these aspects of
design, I am unable to find concrete instantiations that show that these
vague words ever had any impact on the resulting works. Worse, they may
have had a negative impact because early designers and architects (even
today) are fond of making strong pronouncements about the way their works
impact people, but without any shred of experimental validation.
Statements of belief do not constitute evidence.
As for footnotes, I said that different disciplines use them differently:
historians use footnotes quite differently than scientists. This includes
Designers who talk about the history of design. Note that I am not saying
they are wrong -- I am saying that different disciplines use footnotes
differently.
The argumentation about footnotes was NOT about the use of a footnote to
provide a reference, it was about textual asides, to elaborate upon the
textual material in the book itself. This is why footnotes can occupy more
pages than the main text.
When you cite the number of references and footnotes for
various publications, you are falling into what I call "the fallacy of
numbers." Telling me how many footnotes or references there are does not
tell me how they are used. You need to tell me how many of those footnotes
are simply references versus footnotes that are textual asides to
enhance or supplement the main argument given within the text.
Footnotes to indicate references are indeed widely used. I use them
myself. Most of the footnotes in scientific writing are for references.
So let me grab a few books from my bookcase and look:
I just grabbed a copy of "Design of Everyday Things" and discovered it had
10 pages of references, with roughly 17 references/page. To my surprise, I
discovered that the "Notes" took 12 pages, most of which were descriptions
of reference material, but a bit more discourse on the topics themselves
than I had remembered.
Other books
------
Anthony, K. H. (2017). *Defined by design: the surprising power of hidden
gender, age, and body bias in everyday products and places*. Amherst, New
York: Prometheus Books.
The 40 pages of notes are entirely devoted to references. I see no
textual description.
------
Shneiderman, B. (2016). *The new ABCs of research: achieving breakthrough
collaborations*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
29 pages of notes, with only an absolute minimum of textual comment.
-----
Muratovski, G. (2016). *Research for designers: a guide to methods and
practice*. London: Sage Publications.
Many references. Zero (0) footnotes.
====================
I have NEVER argued against documentation, against citation and the giving
of credit to prior workers. In my earlier note, which was part of the tail
you included in your response to me, I said:
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.
So I conclude:
It is footnotes that are textual elaborations upon material in the text
that I am opposed to and that i find rarely in scientific publications.
Citations to previous work and credit to others is an essential part of
scientific and scholarly writing. Yes, most scientific articles have
numerous footnotes as reference guides. Not to credit previous workers is
considered a sin in science. Telling me how many footnotes are in an
article does not tell me what kind they are": necessary references or
asides and comments upon the text.
===
In conclusion.
We agree on a number of points. You misunderstood me on some points, which
implies that my writing was not clear. And we disagree on some points.
Which is how it should be. Disagreements are often the way we make the most
progress.
Don
---
selected excerpts:
On Sat, Jan 20, 2018 at 9:19 AM, Heidi Overhill <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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.
...
> 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
>
>
...
>
> 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.
>
> ...
>
> 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."
>
>
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