Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- slimvirgin(a)gmail.com wrote:
On 3/26/06, Daniel Mayer
<maveric149(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Personal communications are valid to cite. All one
needs to do to check is call the guy and
ask the same question.
All our sources have to be published, Daniel, i.e. in the public
domain, so a personal communication can't be cited.
That is absurd since not all knowledge has been written. What matters is if you can trust
the
source and if it is verifiable. The method of communication is not that important.
If it's extremely important and not available elsewhere I suppose I
could see citing personal communication, but in general I'd be wary of
it precisely because it's *not* particularly easily verifiable. The
source, often in another country, might not be easily reachable, and is
likely not immortal. This is also true, of course, of particularly
obscure and hard-to-acquire books; in both cases, preference should be
made for more widely-available sources.
As an added bonus, widely-available sources tend to be more
authoritative and reviewed by more people in the field, who have the
opportunity to point out errors.
-Mark