Comments on: Audit Confirms What Show-Me Institute Scholars Have Said All Along: Tax Credits Are Overhyped

By: Slashing tax credits in Missouri | United for Missouri

Slashing tax credits in Missouri | United for Missouri — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:11:58 +0000

[...] from $372 million in 2001 to over $584 million in 2009, an increase of 57%. Between 2005 and 2009, tax credits grew from 5% of the budget to 7.8% of the [...]

By: Eric D. Dixon

Eric D. Dixon — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:16:56 +0000

Earlier today, I showed this comment thread to a coworker who hadn't seen it before, for lols, and remembered that I wanted to say just a little more. When I wrote my responses above on April 29, I was posting them from my cell phone at the New Orleans Jazz Fest fairgrounds. If I'd been at the office, I would have cited style guide chapter and verse. I'm at the office now, style guide in hand, so here goes: The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers, The University of Chicago Press, 15th ed., p. 267.

6.104

Use of square brackets. Square brackets (in the United States usually just called brackets) are used mainly to enclose material—usually added by someone other than the original writer—that does not belong to the surrounding text. In quoted matter, reprints, anthologies, and other non-original material, square brackets enclose editorial interpolations, explanations, translations of foreign terms, or corrections. Sometimes the bracketed material replaces rather than amplifies the original word or words. For brackets in mathematical copy, see 14.25. See also 11.66–68.

"They [the free-silver Democrats] asserted that the ratio could be maintained."
"Many CF [cystic fibrosis] patients have been helped by the new therapy."
Satire, Jebb tells us, "is the only [form] that has a continuous development."
[This was written before the discovery of the Driscoll manuscript.—Ed.]

If quoted matter already includes brackets of its own, the editor should so state in the source citation (e.g., "Brackets in the original"); see 11.70 for an analogous situation with italics.

By: Brian R. Hook

Brian R. Hook — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 02:53:46 +0000

I find this ongoing debate about blogging style humorous. There is no “official” blogging style, or even a style guide. And as most people seem to forget, a style guide is a guide to style. Even a dictionary is nothing more than a compilation of common usages. I would go on with a rant about why I think writers should think of a dictionary as more of a lexicon than a rule book, but I am already starting to digress. Blogging is a new form of communication. Therefore, if your point is made and people understand it, than you have accomplished something. If your idea is bogged down with a bunch of dribble, but is stylistic correct, what is the point? – BRH

By: Eric D. Dixon

Eric D. Dixon — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:23:18 +0000

You’re simply incorrect.

By: Eapen Thampy

Eapen Thampy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:22:18 +0000

You’re missing the point. Square brackets are necessary but not sufficient because I don’t know if you made that edit or if it is part of the original text. That’s why it’s necessary to at the very least provide notation that it is YOUR edit and not something contained in the original work. Simply linking to the original work is not sufficient to clear this up; it shouldn’t be the reader’s job to clarify that point.

I really don’t mean to be a jerk and I thought that the rest of your work is pretty good. But the citation issues undermine the quality of your scholarship.

By: Dave Roland

Dave Roland — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:01:19 +0000

Eapen,

Our standard practice is to avoid calling out by name individuals of whom we are critical. We have adhered to this policy for years, and we do this to emphasize that it is the policy or idea that we wish to criticize, not the person. It is absolutely not uncommon to substitute a phrase (such as [expletive deleted] or some other modification of words that the author does not find it useful to quote directly) when quoting what someone else has said or written. The very fact that the modified phrase is put in brackets puts the reader on notice that a non-substantial alteration has been made. Given that we have provided a link to the original statement, any reader who wishes may confirm the original statement – and may point out if we have somehow failed to convey the same idea as was contained in the original.

By: Eric D. Dixon

Eric D. Dixon — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:00:09 +0000

Square brackets are the editorial symbol for an alteration to quoted material. It’s absolutely standard; almost any newspaper, magazine, or journal you could name uses them.

There are many reasons to use them. In this case, it could be that simply using the name “Richards” is insuffucient for a first reference within a piece. In that case, one would place his title and first name within square brackets to create a complete first reference within a quoted passage that has only an incomplete subsequent reference.

This could also be a reflection of Show-Me Institute policy, which predates my own employment here, that as often as feasible when we have critical things to say, we often — even usually — avoid using the names of the people whose ideas we’re criticizing, for exactly the reasons Caitlin identified. We educate the public about policies and ideas, not personalities.

You’re really barking up the wrong tree here.

By: Caitlin Hartsell

Caitlin Hartsell — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:56:28 +0000

Eapen, this is a blog post, not a formal academic paper. I noted that I did edit it when I included the brackets around [the speaker] in place of his last name. I’m sorry you disagree with it stylistically, but I did include the link to the actual article. Obviously, you were able to find the “original” wording fairly quickly.

When I criticize someone, I tend to take their name out of the argument because it makes it less personal. It makes it about the ideas. Criticizing ideas rather than the people making them makes for a much stronger argument.

By: Eapen Thampy

Eapen Thampy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:39:33 +0000

Why aren’t you defending misrepresenting someone’s work? That is the more serious substantive issue to me.

By: Caitlin Hartsell

Caitlin Hartsell — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:37:01 +0000

Why do you choose to comment on style, rather than substance?

By: Eapen Thampy

Eapen Thampy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:34:46 +0000

Then the appropriate way to make that edit is to make a formal note that you are editing someone else’s work with the notation as to why. Otherwise you are misrepresenting the content of someone else’s work.

Why aren’t you 100% consistent with this? Why not just not use Montee’s name or Nixon’s name and say the “auditor” or “the governor”?

This policy of yours is very strange, particularly since your founder, Rex, has given money to Richards in the past.

By: Caitlin Hartsell

Caitlin Hartsell — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:30:41 +0000

Yes, Eapen, and it’s the SAME reason we stated before: we are about ideas, not people.

By: Eapen Thampy

Eapen Thampy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:28:46 +0000

I find it very interesting that you edited someone else’s article to remove the phrase “Richards stated” and replace it by “[the speaker]” stated without even noting that you had edited the excerpt for whatever reason you edited it. I don’t like Richards much either but is there a reason why you don’t want to use his actual name?