I'm concluding a week-long research trip in Monroe, Michigan, which was essentially the hometown of George Armstrong Custer and his wife Libbie, the subjects of my next book. The archivists here are wonderful—knowledgeable, helpful, always cheerful. But I've encountered something that leads me to make another entry in my sporadic commentary on the art of writing biography, in order to explain the importance of transparency.
Custer attracts countless amateur researchers—enthusiasts who love his story, or perhaps who have a special hatred for the man. Whatever. I think the enthusiasm is great. I've benefitted from it, since they have often shared the fruits of their digging in newsletter articles and supplementary material provided to archives. But amateurism has a downside, too: on occasion, the non-scholarly researcher doesn't provide full information on where a source is located. Please note that I'm not slamming all enthusiasts. Far from it. I'm not an academic myself. But I do value the scholarly virtues of thoroughness and transparency.
As a writer, your authority ultimately rests upon your convincing the reader that your sources are authentic, and that you've read them correctly. The only way to do that is to provide full citations in your article or book. I couldn't care less about what stylebook you follow, or if you follow one at all, as long as you provide a clear map that will allow future researchers to find your sources for themselves. Do you have insights or caveats to share regarding those sources? Tell us in your endnotes. The more transparent your research the more solid is the foundation of your book's success. It's not good enough for you know you did a thorough job of research. The reader can't know that anything in your book is true unless the sources can be independently inspected and verified.
That leads me to a problem I've encountered many times in my Custer research: the unavailability of original material. He was famous well before he so famously died at the Little Bighorn, and collectors have been finding and filing away his private papers for a century and a half now. I've seen photos on the Internet of letters of his—only to learn that the owners of those papers refuse to allow anyone to see the originals. I simply can't cite them, under those circumstances. I've been burned by invented sources before. Keeping primary source documents secret only dilutes their market value, and makes our entire culture poorer.
The image is from http://www.freeinfosociety.com/article.php?id=363
Custer attracts countless amateur researchers—enthusiasts who love his story, or perhaps who have a special hatred for the man. Whatever. I think the enthusiasm is great. I've benefitted from it, since they have often shared the fruits of their digging in newsletter articles and supplementary material provided to archives. But amateurism has a downside, too: on occasion, the non-scholarly researcher doesn't provide full information on where a source is located. Please note that I'm not slamming all enthusiasts. Far from it. I'm not an academic myself. But I do value the scholarly virtues of thoroughness and transparency.As a writer, your authority ultimately rests upon your convincing the reader that your sources are authentic, and that you've read them correctly. The only way to do that is to provide full citations in your article or book. I couldn't care less about what stylebook you follow, or if you follow one at all, as long as you provide a clear map that will allow future researchers to find your sources for themselves. Do you have insights or caveats to share regarding those sources? Tell us in your endnotes. The more transparent your research the more solid is the foundation of your book's success. It's not good enough for you know you did a thorough job of research. The reader can't know that anything in your book is true unless the sources can be independently inspected and verified.
That leads me to a problem I've encountered many times in my Custer research: the unavailability of original material. He was famous well before he so famously died at the Little Bighorn, and collectors have been finding and filing away his private papers for a century and a half now. I've seen photos on the Internet of letters of his—only to learn that the owners of those papers refuse to allow anyone to see the originals. I simply can't cite them, under those circumstances. I've been burned by invented sources before. Keeping primary source documents secret only dilutes their market value, and makes our entire culture poorer.
The image is from http://www.freeinfosociety.com/article.php?id=363
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