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Is there a standard or consensus at WP?
My instincts, the above arguments, and the general WP idea of keeping things simple, tell me that we should use brackets and plain text, and, when the whole quote is italicized, italicize the [sic] as well.
Thank you to all who played. paul klenk 16:08, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
Why is it important to preserve a typo? Surely good writing demands that you correct it? I know of no honest record that doesn't correct obvious and unintentional errors (unless preserving them actually adds to what is being reported), jguk 19:37, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
The question of [sic] was discussed at the Terri Schiavo talk page. Michael Schiavo testified in court that he had taken up nursing because he wanted "to learn how to take care of Terri." No Wikipedian was present to hear his testimony, so we relied on the official court transcript, which misspelled her name as Terry. The article had, "I want to learn how to take care of Terry [sic]." I removed the [sic], since we were quoting Michael's words (e.g. "Michael said", not "the court transcript said that Michael said"). I explained in the edit summary that Michael did not misspell his wife's name when he was giving oral testimony. The [sic] was replaced by another editor, on the grounds that we got our information from the transcript. I disagreed, but didn't feel it was worth squabbling over. Later, someone else removed it again, and we came to some agreement to leave it out. The discussion is now archived, but it can be seen at Talk:Terri_Schiavo/archive32#sic. Ann Heneghan (talk) 20:15, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
Let me quote the entry from Fowler's Modern English Usage in full:
I suggest we shouldn't be reviewers or controversialists, jguk 23:08, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I would suggest that we avoid sic altogether, which is another one of these pretentious Latin thingies best avoided (like i.e., e.g., ibid., op. cit., etc.) and stick to a standard English-language note after quotations. Something like (spellings as in original). However, given that, I don't see that there is anything "misleading" about correcting misspellings when quoting. Making sure that we use the original (incorrect) spellings seems about as important as making sure we use the original font. The message is the message, not the medium. Language is words, not a series of letters, and quotations are of language. Nohat 20:14, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I feel strongly that we should be using 'sic' (ideally as '(sic)' rather than '[sic]' as the latter could be mistaken by an editor for an external link) for two reasons. Firstly that no encyclopedia should *ever* change a quotation / quoted source. If readers cannot trust us to report a quote correctly why should they trust us about anything we write? Secondly, because there is no better way to encode that we have provided the quote verbatim. "sic" means "spelling as in original" (not plural, btw) or "word choice as in original" and is much shorter / less obtrusive. It is also fairly common in reference materials. Now if we were to discuss the title of this section I'd rather see "Misspelt words ..." or "Misspelling of words ..."! -- Vamp: Willow 20:23, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Further up this page, someone asked for even one style manual which permits changing letters inside litteral quotes. A passage from Fowler was given, but nothing in Fowler permits this, not in that passage or anywhere. No style manual I am aware of does, and the reason is this is regarded as dishonest, especially in the academic world. If I as a reader find that a source has changed something in literal quotes without alerting me somehow, I will not trust that source. Wikipedia should have a strong expectation that we are honest with our sources, even to the letter and punctuation mark, if we are to be regarded as worth serious consideration. CDThieme 20:36, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Just to maybe try to move this forward a little, after being away for a while I think I've clarified my thoughts. This isn't a proposal, but I'm curious what people think about this as a framework for moving the discussion forward:
Chuck 22:24, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
On a related note, how about depicting intentionally misspelled or abnormally used terms? The example I'm thinking of right now pertains to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which Bobby Henderson's creation myth claims created a "midgit". Because this perceived misspelling is unintentional, standard English style seems to dictate putting it in quotes (or using [sic], which in this case I think is best avoided), much as would be done if using a word in an unconventional or unusual manner.— chris.lawson ( talk) 06:25, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
I have never seen it written anyway but [sic] or [<em>sic</em>]. But, I don't believe it has a place in the Wikipedia. Editors of periodicals use it to show they know there is an error, but it is not their fault (not implicitly, but that's the general idea behind it). But in an encyclopedia it doesn't have a purpose. If there is an error in the text, it should be corrected. If it is a quote from a written source, it should remain true to the original source material. If it is from an oral transcription, it should be corrected in spelling, but not in grammar. [sic] is unnecessary in the encyclopedia because it doesn't add to the content. If you look at other encyclopedias, there is no [sic] in them at all. Not in Britanica, Encarta, encyclopedia.com, et al. glocks out 18:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
A question on style which I couldn't find. In an article like The Ashes you will see a mix of Australia and Australia. What is the convention? Personal opinion is that repeated links affect readability, though on a long page, the convention of first link only may be inappropriate. Not looking for hard and fast rule, but a guide here. Spenny 12:55, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
All time references should include either a direct reference to either the time actually referenced or a direct reference to the time from which the relative time reference is made. Soft time references ("soon", "recent past", "a little while") should try to be avoided due to the ambiguity of the time referenced. If a soft time reference cannot be avoided, the time referenced from ("soon" from what time point?). For example, "now" should always be referenced to the time written, if that is what is intended.
To simplify the reading of the articles, it's possible that the time references can remain soft or ambiguous, but they should (must?) include a hard reference within the "meta data" such that the time referenced or the time relative anchor is shown as a rollover in a normal web browser.
The article that prompted this suggestion is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EM64T where it references "soon" with no "time anchor".
My apologies if this is in the wrong location: this is my first ever post to wikipedia. GSmith 21:16, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
I'd agree that soft time references can be a problem and should be avoided where possible. Where it's not possible, context is vital. Another related word which can cause problems and always needs to be placed with unambiguous context is "contemporary", with its shift in meaning from "at the same time" to "modern". Grutness... wha? 01:11, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
And one step better than "as of 2005" is " as of 2005". -- Jmabel | Talk 00:59, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
Isn't this whole idea pretty non-controversial. I'd be pretty surprised to see an edit war where one person wrote "recently" and someone changed it to "early 2005" and the first guy wanted it changed back. Even if that does happen, I think it would be pretty hard to support using the more vague time, regardless of whether the Manual of Style includes an entry on the topic. Chuck 16:11, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
From the Use of punctuation in the presence of brackets section:
The phrase "like shown here" is one I've never encountered before, and for reasons I can't quite articulate, not being sufficiently expert in grammar, it feels wrong.
I'd be inclined to use "as shown here". Is "like shown" considered incorrect, or is it just a particulary uncommon usage? Direvus 17:11, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Like is a preposition and can be used to introduce a prepositional phrase. Like is not used to introduce a clause. Therefore, "as shown here" (an elliptical clause) is correct. —Wayward 04:49, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
While the present objection to [like's conjunctive use] is perhaps more heated than rational, someone writing in a formal prose style may well prefer to use as, as if, such as, or an entirely different construction instead.
So there you have it. Your notion of correctness is better described as a notion of proper formal usage.
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 20 | ← | Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 |
Is there a standard or consensus at WP?
My instincts, the above arguments, and the general WP idea of keeping things simple, tell me that we should use brackets and plain text, and, when the whole quote is italicized, italicize the [sic] as well.
Thank you to all who played. paul klenk 16:08, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
Why is it important to preserve a typo? Surely good writing demands that you correct it? I know of no honest record that doesn't correct obvious and unintentional errors (unless preserving them actually adds to what is being reported), jguk 19:37, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
The question of [sic] was discussed at the Terri Schiavo talk page. Michael Schiavo testified in court that he had taken up nursing because he wanted "to learn how to take care of Terri." No Wikipedian was present to hear his testimony, so we relied on the official court transcript, which misspelled her name as Terry. The article had, "I want to learn how to take care of Terry [sic]." I removed the [sic], since we were quoting Michael's words (e.g. "Michael said", not "the court transcript said that Michael said"). I explained in the edit summary that Michael did not misspell his wife's name when he was giving oral testimony. The [sic] was replaced by another editor, on the grounds that we got our information from the transcript. I disagreed, but didn't feel it was worth squabbling over. Later, someone else removed it again, and we came to some agreement to leave it out. The discussion is now archived, but it can be seen at Talk:Terri_Schiavo/archive32#sic. Ann Heneghan (talk) 20:15, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
Let me quote the entry from Fowler's Modern English Usage in full:
I suggest we shouldn't be reviewers or controversialists, jguk 23:08, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I would suggest that we avoid sic altogether, which is another one of these pretentious Latin thingies best avoided (like i.e., e.g., ibid., op. cit., etc.) and stick to a standard English-language note after quotations. Something like (spellings as in original). However, given that, I don't see that there is anything "misleading" about correcting misspellings when quoting. Making sure that we use the original (incorrect) spellings seems about as important as making sure we use the original font. The message is the message, not the medium. Language is words, not a series of letters, and quotations are of language. Nohat 20:14, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I feel strongly that we should be using 'sic' (ideally as '(sic)' rather than '[sic]' as the latter could be mistaken by an editor for an external link) for two reasons. Firstly that no encyclopedia should *ever* change a quotation / quoted source. If readers cannot trust us to report a quote correctly why should they trust us about anything we write? Secondly, because there is no better way to encode that we have provided the quote verbatim. "sic" means "spelling as in original" (not plural, btw) or "word choice as in original" and is much shorter / less obtrusive. It is also fairly common in reference materials. Now if we were to discuss the title of this section I'd rather see "Misspelt words ..." or "Misspelling of words ..."! -- Vamp: Willow 20:23, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Further up this page, someone asked for even one style manual which permits changing letters inside litteral quotes. A passage from Fowler was given, but nothing in Fowler permits this, not in that passage or anywhere. No style manual I am aware of does, and the reason is this is regarded as dishonest, especially in the academic world. If I as a reader find that a source has changed something in literal quotes without alerting me somehow, I will not trust that source. Wikipedia should have a strong expectation that we are honest with our sources, even to the letter and punctuation mark, if we are to be regarded as worth serious consideration. CDThieme 20:36, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Just to maybe try to move this forward a little, after being away for a while I think I've clarified my thoughts. This isn't a proposal, but I'm curious what people think about this as a framework for moving the discussion forward:
Chuck 22:24, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
On a related note, how about depicting intentionally misspelled or abnormally used terms? The example I'm thinking of right now pertains to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which Bobby Henderson's creation myth claims created a "midgit". Because this perceived misspelling is unintentional, standard English style seems to dictate putting it in quotes (or using [sic], which in this case I think is best avoided), much as would be done if using a word in an unconventional or unusual manner.— chris.lawson ( talk) 06:25, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
I have never seen it written anyway but [sic] or [<em>sic</em>]. But, I don't believe it has a place in the Wikipedia. Editors of periodicals use it to show they know there is an error, but it is not their fault (not implicitly, but that's the general idea behind it). But in an encyclopedia it doesn't have a purpose. If there is an error in the text, it should be corrected. If it is a quote from a written source, it should remain true to the original source material. If it is from an oral transcription, it should be corrected in spelling, but not in grammar. [sic] is unnecessary in the encyclopedia because it doesn't add to the content. If you look at other encyclopedias, there is no [sic] in them at all. Not in Britanica, Encarta, encyclopedia.com, et al. glocks out 18:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
A question on style which I couldn't find. In an article like The Ashes you will see a mix of Australia and Australia. What is the convention? Personal opinion is that repeated links affect readability, though on a long page, the convention of first link only may be inappropriate. Not looking for hard and fast rule, but a guide here. Spenny 12:55, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
All time references should include either a direct reference to either the time actually referenced or a direct reference to the time from which the relative time reference is made. Soft time references ("soon", "recent past", "a little while") should try to be avoided due to the ambiguity of the time referenced. If a soft time reference cannot be avoided, the time referenced from ("soon" from what time point?). For example, "now" should always be referenced to the time written, if that is what is intended.
To simplify the reading of the articles, it's possible that the time references can remain soft or ambiguous, but they should (must?) include a hard reference within the "meta data" such that the time referenced or the time relative anchor is shown as a rollover in a normal web browser.
The article that prompted this suggestion is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EM64T where it references "soon" with no "time anchor".
My apologies if this is in the wrong location: this is my first ever post to wikipedia. GSmith 21:16, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
I'd agree that soft time references can be a problem and should be avoided where possible. Where it's not possible, context is vital. Another related word which can cause problems and always needs to be placed with unambiguous context is "contemporary", with its shift in meaning from "at the same time" to "modern". Grutness... wha? 01:11, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
And one step better than "as of 2005" is " as of 2005". -- Jmabel | Talk 00:59, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
Isn't this whole idea pretty non-controversial. I'd be pretty surprised to see an edit war where one person wrote "recently" and someone changed it to "early 2005" and the first guy wanted it changed back. Even if that does happen, I think it would be pretty hard to support using the more vague time, regardless of whether the Manual of Style includes an entry on the topic. Chuck 16:11, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
From the Use of punctuation in the presence of brackets section:
The phrase "like shown here" is one I've never encountered before, and for reasons I can't quite articulate, not being sufficiently expert in grammar, it feels wrong.
I'd be inclined to use "as shown here". Is "like shown" considered incorrect, or is it just a particulary uncommon usage? Direvus 17:11, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Like is a preposition and can be used to introduce a prepositional phrase. Like is not used to introduce a clause. Therefore, "as shown here" (an elliptical clause) is correct. —Wayward 04:49, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
While the present objection to [like's conjunctive use] is perhaps more heated than rational, someone writing in a formal prose style may well prefer to use as, as if, such as, or an entirely different construction instead.
So there you have it. Your notion of correctness is better described as a notion of proper formal usage.