Criticism and Published Material

[Jim McDougall]

Outstanding and well thought out and presented responses everyone, thank you! It really is interesting to see the perspectives illustrated here, especially by many of you who have indeed been in the position to experience various levels of criticism in works you have completed. I must admit that personally, in the limited items I have published, I have found it disappointing that I received absolutely no criticism, either bad or good concerning them. It is true that an author anxiously awaits response when his work is presented, and truly is often prepared for the worst. Typically many authors/artists etc. are thier own worst critics, and ones own humility often dictates such expectations.
I honestly had hoped for corrections or additional information or data, or observations by more experienced or informed individuals from which I could learn. Aside from those circumstances concerning formally published material, in certain instances over the years in posting on the forums I did indeed receive some very harsh criticism quite unexpectedly which offered absolutely nothing constructive. By the same token, I have always been humbled and extremely grateful for kind words often received on my efforts to present data I had researched.

I have always found scholarly chest pounding or academic arrogance tiresome, boring and completely irrelevant to useful discussion. Too often individuals overly taken with themselves mistakenly think that degrading the work of an author, regardless if professional or amateur, makes them seem more scholarly. Too much time is wasted with such labeling, and personal animosity or misguided personality problems as well as sophomoric debates are the problems I referred to in my comments.

Perhaps I am too idealistic, but I think that valuing a work for what it is should be a personal matter. Clearly criticism serves its purpose, but should be presented with courtesy and respect. Harsh or detrimental comments questioning the integrity or knowledge of the author is unnecessary and ill placed. If an error is made, it should be noted in criticism with corrected data and support, presented as material to assist readers and accent the authors established work.

As always, remember two words, courtesy and respect. Give them to others and they will be returned to you in kind.

[fearn]

That is a very thoughtful message, Jim, and much appreciated.

The one thing I'd add is that the response "looks good" with no further comments almost invariably means that the person did not read what you wrote, in my experience. While I believe in being complimentary, I prefer details, especially when I'm circulating a rough draft for feedback.

This, by the way, is for an academic context. Around here, compliments on blades should be taken at face value

F

[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

[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.