Criticism and Published Material

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Jeff D

Darn, I really tried to stay out of this but...

The way I deal with a complex problem is to break it down to its basics. Publications are supposed to add to your knowledge. The primary question you should ask yourself is 'Does this publication add anything to my current understanding?'. If the answer is yes, then the paper is a success and was worth doing. If the answer is no then it is a failure. Simple.
This of course is a very personal and subjective grading system. A "basic" paper maybe very informative to me but quite useless to the Artzis', Jims and Philips etc. The fact that some have a greater understanding and gain less from it, does not make it a worthless, laughable, piece of crap.
Like Jim, I have been trolled into too many useless arguments with people with too small of minds to get over occasional factual errors or typo's, who also can't seem to understand that publications may be ment for only a specific portion of the community. Constructive criticism and corrections are always welcome, but, some of the spiteful bile seen is completely inappropriate and quite frankly, pathetic.

My $0.02 CDN (which is getting close to $0.02 USD)
Jeff

Great point! Every book is written for a specific audience, for a specific purpose and, let's not forget, for a specific group of reviewers.
Several years ago, I submitted a grant proposal to a Federal agency. The administrator assigned it to a Study Section that had no expertise in the area and my appeals to re-assign it were rejected (" We have specialists").
Well, it came back with a priority score (grade) that put it in a 96th percentile, meaning that only 4% of all submissions were as bad as mine. Having read the reviews, I saw that my worst predictions about the suitability of this particular group of reviewers came true: they had no idea what it was all about. One review consisted of a single sentence: " This is the classic chicken/egg question". Not being able to understand the topic, they did the safest thing: rejected it. Not having time to re-write the proposal, I changed a single word in the title; this forced the administrator to assign my proposal, as a new one, to the Study Section with expertise in the area. It came back with great reviews, was put in a 4th percentile (the best 4% of all proposals ever reviewed by this Study Section) and I got all the money I requested.
I made a slide of both summary statements and still show it to the fellows I lecture on "grantsmanship".
There is another, even more vile, reason for bad critique: personal animosity and envy. I apologize for bringing a specific example and hope I do not inflict unnecessary pain on the author. But this is the best illustration I know how NOT to critique.
No recent book on arms and armour was attacked as viciously and unjustifyably as "Islamic Weapons" by Anthony Tirri. This book was not intended to be a scientific treatise on the construction, development and cultural/religious elements of Oriental weapons. This is the task that belongs to museum exhibitions and collections and to professional weapon historians such as Elgood, Astvatsaturyan, Miller, LaRocca, Zygulski and many others. Tirri's book was, and is, a beautiful exhibition of collector-grade weapons. As such, it fulfilled it's intended purpose of showing ordinary collectors what weapons they may encounter in real life.
Did it have factual errors? Yes. Was the overall title appropriate for a book that included distinctly non-Islamic weapons? No. Could it be criticised on these grounds? Absolutely.
But the personal intensity, the sheer vile and the rabid animosity of some of the "reviewers" went far beyond the boundaries of good taste, fairness and objectivity. They misread the purpose of the book and judged it according to their own, externally-imposed, criteria. It is like saying that a two-story colonial house utterly failed as a convention center. Even now, some of them are still foaming at the mouth using insulting and, perhaps, libelous statements like "plagiarism", "outright ignorance of history", "shameful disgrace of a book", "unqualified author", "blatantly false information" etc. Some stoop as low as to accuse the author of publishing the book to inflate the price of his collection. This comes from the same people who insist on high academic standards and whose contribution to the field includes an essay on how to dress like a pimp.
This is not criticism; this is a true example of "'spiteful bile". And, indeed, it is pathetic....
What can we learn from all of that? First, before critiquing a book ( a sword, a house, a stew or anything else) ask yourself: do I have enough knowledge in the area? Second, what was the goal set forth by the author and can the final result be critiqued on it's own terms? Third, are there any factual errors that need to be put straight and does the correction alter the interpretation? Fourth, how much of our critique is driven by objective facts and how much personal baggage do we bring? Last, is our critique aimed at improving the field of knowledge or is it's purpose to denigrate the original author and/or settle some personal accounts?
Then sit back and decide whether we want to be decent human beings or spiteful scoundrels. The choice is ours.