medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: John Briggs <[log in to unmask]>
> afdtk wrote:
>> In other words, I think we have to be careful of lending too much credence
to so-called objective measures of scholarly output.
> If you read carefully what I have written, I never suggested that these
measures were in any way objective. Nor did I suggest that I believed in
them (I'm the sceptic, remember!)
>Nor, for that matter, do I think that
these techniques are really applicable (yet) to the humanities, because the
literature is less developed than in the sciences
i recently had the experiece of helping a Lieberry Scientist friend finish her
dissertation by doing some initial spadework which involved extensive use of
one of the very, very extensive science databases on-line.
i was amazed at
1) the shear *number* of articles available --*massively* more than in the
humanities; those guys must really Perish if they don't Publish.
b) the accessibility of (at the least) extrats of those articles, and the
complexity of the linked searches i could do to find them. nothing like that
exists in the humanities, to my knowledge. JSTOR is only a pale reflection of
what Could Be.
> people still publish monographs, for heaven's sake!
a sure sign of the basic Health of the Discipline(s).
becomming rarer, alas.
>it is lagging by decades, if not centuries.
and, Long may it Lag, sez i.
c
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