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Stop defacing quotes with brackets

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Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#91

Post by sokoloff »

jusssi wrote: post #56
ddingus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are the words in brackets, and so should be responsibility.

But a quote intermingled with [paraphrase] just becomes a more awkward way to paraphrase? Because surely it isn't a verbatim quote any more.

It’s a convenience to the reader. If I paraphrase a reference to support my point, it’s more work for you to determine if I’ve done so correctly. If I quote and update a dangling reference, it’s much easier for the reader to decide if I’ve done so in good faith and without introducing significant bias (whether intentionally or inadvertently).

I think it’s more faithful to the original, at a slight cost of fluid readability, which is often a good trade-off of features.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#92

Post by ghusbands »

jusssi wrote: post #56
ddingus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are the words in brackets, and so should be responsibility.

But a quote intermingled with [paraphrase] just becomes a more awkward way to paraphrase? Because surely it isn't a verbatim quote any more.

You seem to be misunderstanding. Square brackets are not paraphrasing, they are correcting words for context. They should not alter the meaning, as paraphrasing often does.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#93

Post by jstanley »

eqvinox wrote: post #71

> A set of brackets is a barrier to understanding between the reader and the writer. No, a set of brackets is a sign of respect for the original author who didn't spell their statement to match the writer's situation. Any change to a quote that isn't clearly indicated would make me very, very suspicious whether the writer is misrepresenting what the original author said.

They're not saying "change the quote without indicating that you did", they're saying "don't change the quote".

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#94

Post by sokoloff »

dragonwriter wrote: post #73

This is bad advice citing comically-bad examples of the practice to criticize the practice. Yes, the specific examples given there are all bad and unnecessary, don't do that. But that's not what bracketed editorial interpolation is for, and editorial interpolation isn't, as the article (paraphrasing the AP manual) pretends, an alternative to paraphrasing, it's a mechanism of paraphrasing which makes explicit what is…

By quoting with brackets (vs outright paraphrasing), you are staking some trust though. If I do search and find you’ve fabricated the quote, you’ve lost much more credibility than if I find you’ve paraphrased poorly. The latter can be argued to be innocent in a way the former cannot.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#95

Post by jomar »

kqr wrote: post #39
jomar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they use(d) a reduced character set that included parentheses but not brackets. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudot_code#ITA_2_and_US-TTY There was a time before ASCII, you know...

But this only punts the question forward: why do they still use this reduced character set, when most (if not all) of their data is transmitted over the internet?

I have no idea whether they still use this reduced character set. But whether or not they do, this could still affect the protocol or stylebook, for the usual sorts of reasons when legacy systems are involved:

* News wires are large old distributed networks. There may still be old equipment attached to it that natively uses this encoding; or modern software may still be using the compatible encoding because it was never practical or cost-effective to have a "flag day" to switch over.

* Even if the technical limitation has been lifted, the convention may live on as part of the folklore of the field.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#96

Post by bombcar »

gbh444g wrote: post #48
kqr wrote: post #2

This does not address the primary way I (ab?)use these brackets: to fill in the subject explicitly when the original author refers to it only implicitly. So quoting the last clause in the above paragraph, I might write > when the author refers to [the subject] only implicitly. The obvious alternative is to quote a longer passage. Maybe this is one of those cases where conciseness fights with authenticity. Another sol…

Is it a regexp? I'm thinking if we could come up with a especially dense writing style that needs quadratic time to fully understand a sentence. Like you read a sentence of N words and get only a surface level meaning. Then you re-read it and understand a bit more. Repeat it about N times and you get the full picture.

You’ve pretty well described German philosophers.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#98

Post by zeven7 »

ant6n wrote: post #80
kqr wrote: post #2

This does not address the primary way I (ab?)use these brackets: to fill in the subject explicitly when the original author refers to it only implicitly. So quoting the last clause in the above paragraph, I might write > when the author refers to [the subject] only implicitly. The obvious alternative is to quote a longer passage. Maybe this is one of those cases where conciseness fights with authenticity. Another sol…

But why remove the „it“? That changes the quote in a way that’s not marked, since the brackets denote an addition but not a removal. Keeping it would make it clearer what actually happened to the quote, That you merely expand what the „it“ references to, and thus is more trustworthy.

Brackets often indicate a replacement, which includes a removal of something.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#100

Post by La1n »

dragonwriter wrote: post #46
kens wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that "sic" has two uses. The standard use is, as you say, to indicate that the text is as it appeared originally, and you didn't add a typo. The common Internet use is to indicate "This is wrong. Har har you're stupid." Many people don't realize the first usage exists.

> The problem is that "sic" has two uses. No, it doesn't. > The standard use is, as you say, to indicate that the text is as it appeared originally, This is the use. > and you didn't add a typo. It is not restricted to things which might be mistaken for typographical errors. > The common Internet use is to indicate "This is wrong. Har har you're stupid." It's very common, for some reason, on the internet for people t…

> I'm not convinced that the second use actually exists.

Look at the following message from this thread. Arrow quote marker is already there, so it there'd be no reason for the [sic] in my mind.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26074970

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