A note on blog scholarship

Sometimes on this blog I post reading notes, and other times I post original research that draws on existing scholarship.

When I first started this blog, I thought that the right way of proceeding would be to cite sources in an impeccable and academic way, to prove I’ve done the work, and to let interested readers know how to pursue the research on their own. It is always possible that some readers are in need of a study guide for existing texts, and for them I am very pleased to provide whatever reasonable support I can. Presumably, many other academic bloggers feel the same way.

But as an online tutor, I’ve become increasingly aware of the fact that there is a very real threat that students will plagiarize online materials without giving proper credit. This is a serious enough problem in academia itself, as even appropriately credentialed scholars will behave badly, but made all the worse in a neo-liberal context.

So, I am not in the habit of providing precise page citations in my original research. I will provide them only when I provide reading notes, just in case readers would benefit from a literary sherpa. But if you want precise citations for original research, you will have to ask, or offer a little push back in comments. That, anyway, is my policy going forward.