sleepcamel.net : brad weikel

While researching for my current paper (on symbolic exchange in open source software), I stumbled across this excellent blog by Erik Davis, a PhD candidate in History of Religions at the University of Chicago.

Essentially, he's been using his blog in the way that I imagined I would use mine... although he is much more sophisticated in his approach and focused in his topic. Hopefully, that's just because he's working on his PhD dissertation (whereas I'm just a lowly meandering MA student), and not because I'm incompetent.

Anyway, the quality of his posts (which are part lit review, part synthesis, and part application) draws attention to both the strengths and weaknesses of an academic blog.

First, it indicates that there is some inherent value to blogging as an academic tool... clearly, Erik has found the process helpful either as an incentive to write or as a mode of exploration. If he didn't, why would he still be writing after nearly 100 posts?

Second, the process creates value for others, as well... namely, in this case, me. Normally, googling for theoretical topics tends to be pretty frustrating. You typically find a lot of book reviews and abstracts, but little detailed analysis. There are always a few relevant wikipedia articles, but they are usually too general to help much on, say, a term paper. A blog entry, on the other hand, is likely to provide exactly what a student trying to work through a text is looking for: a record of someone else working through the text, in focused detail.

I think this is a fantastic thing, particularly if it becomes a broader trend in academia. The deep-linking that could result from thousands of academics referencing each others processing of their readings could be incredibly valuable to students at all levels. This is, I suppose, what a variety of professors in our program are trying to accomplish by incorporating wiki's into our classes, with minimal success.

[Perhaps, if the project were broadened, it could be more successful. I've always felt that our program could benefit from a required focus group each semester, in which a small group of students get together for structured reflection and close readings of their work from other classes... if such a curriculum were pursued, with compulsory weekly blogging, the amount of intellectual output and linking could be truly astounding.]

However, this also really brings to the fore the typical issue with academia and the web: attribution. Just this one post that I read, on Davis' blog, has put me in a difficult spot. I've read the books by Mauss and Derrida, and understood them fairly well, but there is no question that my synthesis of them will be heavily influenced by Davis' entry. This is unavoidable. So should I cite him?

On the one hand, I probably should cite him, because his work has informed my own, even if I don't quote him directly. On the other hand, his work has not been peer reviewed, is informally self-published, and, ultimately, isn't an acceptable academic source (regardless of the high quality of his work). So it's a catch-22: if I cite him I'm a shoddy academic who leans on silly online texts for his research, but if I don't I'm a shoddy academic who is flirting with plagiarism.

What will I do? Well, for now I'm not going to cite him, but instead will be very careful about how I make my argument, so that I'm not plagiarizing him. However, if I decide to try to get this paper published later on (or if, as is likely, it becomes the starting point for my thesis), please remind me to talk this issue over with my profs.