Joshua McNeill
Just found a small but weird #citationhole. Roth et al. (2023), an #annualreview article on #ethnicity, cited Brubaker et al. (2004) and Cornell & Hartmann (1998) for #cognitive definitions of ethnicity. The former is fine, but the latter only talks about such definitions by citing Schermerhorn (1970), giving a direct quote. Roth et al. in fact used that quote close to word for word but didn't use quotation marks or cite Schermerhorn. Roth et al. all specialize in ethnicity, so yeah, kinda weird
Mar 25, 2025 at 1:17pmWeb
Show threadJoshua McNeillMar 25, 2025

A lot of the maze-like #citation trails I've found lately have been #sociolinguists being haphazard with #historical facts, assuming that some secondary source that they've read leads back to primary data at some point. Makes sense given they're not #historians so these facts are sometimes relatively ancillary to the #research topic, but it's strange to not use the most direct sources in your area of focus in an annual review of all articles.

#science #publishing #socialscience #sociology

Show threadDr. Angus Andrea Grieve-SmithMar 25, 2025
@joshisanonymous Thanks for posting these! Can you give the quote?
Show threadJoshua McNeillMar 25, 2025
@grvsmth
From Schermerhorn (1970:12): "An ethnic group is defined here as a collectivity within a larger society having real or putative common ancestry, memories of a shared historical past, and a cultural focus on one or more symbolic elements defined as the epitome of their peoplehood."
Show threadJoshua McNeillMar 25, 2025
@grvsmth
And from Roth et al. (2023:41): "Ethnicity is a social and cognitive structure that leads people to recognize themselves and/or be recognized by others as having real or putative common ancestry, shared culture, and/or a shared historical past."
Show threadDr. Angus Andrea Grieve-SmithMar 25, 2025
@joshisanonymous Hm, they both sound like summaries of definitions used in another field, some subfield of anthropology or sociology or even history?
Show threadJoshua McNeillMar 25, 2025
@grvsmth Yeah, I don't think either is a particularly unique view. In Schermerhorn's case, given the time frame and the fact that his goal in his book was theorizing, I think that's either coincidental or comes from people reading his book. It's been cited quite a bit