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August 28, 2006
From a Blog Post to the Scholarly Literature
I've often mentioned the importance of peer review as a screen against error and misrepresentation in scholarship. A long time ago, I even had a couple my articles published as peer reviewed research. Like the vast majority of peer-reviewed papers, my modest contributions received very little attention. But there is another screen in scholarship that goes beyond peer review. This screen results in the relatively small collection of papers and very occasionally books that have become "part of the literature." You find them in every field of study. These are those papers with which one must interact. They are cited repeatedly. They become the foil for further research. They often represent the start of a new line of research. As I said, every discipline has them.
So how do such papers reach this status? Well, it helps if they are great papers that alter the discussion in new and productive ways. But at the more practical level, they are papers that others cite for whatever reason. There are those who believe that scholars should be judged by the frequency with which their works are cited rather than the number of papers written or the prestige of the journals in which they appear.
So could a blog post ever become "part of the literature" on any subject? In my view, it will take some time. And it will take some time for three reasons. First, blog posts are not peer reviewed. So they do not profit from interaction with readers and editors prior to publication and the many clunkers are not screened out. Second, blogs are of a very uneven quality and so are individual posts. Therefore, readers must work harder to evaluate a post than to evaluate a paper in a named journal. Citing a paper in a named journal is safer than citing a blog post. Third, there is a kind of snobbery that not only favors printed journal, but favors the more prestigious one at that.
Having said this, the fact that Tyler Williams' post on Codex "The LXX Psalm Superscriptions (Part 3) Liturgical Notices and the Psalms for the Days of the Week" was cited in a book review by Eileen Schuller in the Review of Biblical Literature is a start in the direction of blog posts reaching the status of those oft cited works that have changed the way we think.
Tyler will forgive me if I say that I don't think this particular post will cause a change in the way scholars think about the Superscriptions in the LXX version of the Psalms. It and the whole series are solid, very informative and well thought out. I learned a great deal from reading them. But I doubt they will launch a new discipline or cause a change in direction for an old one.
The important point is that his post was cited in a well thought of scholarly journal published by the most important scholarly society in his field. This may well be the first case in Biblical studies where such a thing has happened. It won't be the last. Each citation reduces the risk to other scholars citing blog posts in journal articles. As that risk decreases, the possibility of a blog post reaching that highest level of scholarly achievement increases.
Congratulations Tyler!
Posted by DuaneSmith at August 28, 2006 01:19 PM | Read more on Odds and Ends |
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Comments
What? You don't think my post will revolutionize biblical studies scholarship! O yee of little faith... just you wait and see! :-)
Thanks for the congrats!
Posted by: Tyler Williams at August 28, 2006 03:41 PM
Welcome to the new blogroll :)
Posted by: beepbeepitsme at August 28, 2006 03:50 PM
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