Is there really “good” or “bad” literature?
The task, prima facie, is simple – identify a “good”, or well written journal publication. Then, compare it to one that is “bad”. By identifying two extreme ends of the writing spectrum, we will be able to identify a model, a guide, to writing well. If we know the mistakes made in a bad journal publication, we will be able to avoid making those mistakes ourselves.
All published articles have successfully been through a peer-review process; therefore, if it has been published, one must assume that the author has made a credible point in their writing. It is the reader’s subjective impression, a point-in-time judgment, that creates the sense of goodness or badness about a particular article for that particular reader. And this judgment is -of necessity- complex. It will change over team, and as the reader’s purpose changes as they read.
For example, T. Pauketat is a key figure in the archaeology of Cahokia and other Mississippi sites, and has written extensively on the subject. And yet, I find some of his papers to be needlessly difficult to read. In Alternative Histories and North American Archaeology, Pauketat and his co-author write: “People did things differently in North America. They made their own histories, sometimes forgotten, subverted, and controversial but never outside the purview of archaeology. Yet, in their plurality ….”. The writing is not incorrect, but the style is, to me, bombastic and wordy. The reader meanders through the paper in search of the author’s point. What does it mean, for example, to “explore the increasingly historical tenor of the archaeology”? Although I do not feel comfortable with the writing style (and might not read the paper to conclusion), I do not consider it to be “bad”; instead, the authors have used a literary style that forces me to read their work carefully. There IS a point hidden in the text. It is up to the reader to find it.
Therefore, I recognize that, stylistically, there are papers that I disagree with or dislike; however, labelling them as bad does them a disservice. Looking beyond the style of a paper can identify the value to a paper.
There are also papers that are bad because they are factually incorrect. In 1978, David Rorvik released the book “In His Image: The Cloning of a Man”, in which he claimed to have been part of a team that successfully cloned a human being. His claim was somewhat dubious – more so because that was the same year that the movie “The Boys From Brazil“, a fictionalized account of cloning Adolph Hitler, was released. Both works of fiction can be described as “bad”, and Rorvik’s claims were later revealed to be fraudulent. However, in spite of their fictional character, they each engaged thought, and both were considered important contributors in the emergent fields of molecular genetics and cloning.
Interestingly, the scientific literature around cloning has continued to contain falsehoods, and might be considered to not only be “bad”, but to be unforgivable. In 2006, the South Korean cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk was charged with fraud and embezzlement when he faked data in which he claimed to produce patient-specific stem cells from a cloned human embryo. His research, at the time to be considered to be good, was published in Science in 2004 and 2005. Researchers who attempted to replicate his data (a primary component of modern scientific method) were unable to do so, revealing his fraud. Prima facie, his publications could be considered to be “bad”; however, the act of putting his claims to the test identified new areas for research as his detractors reverse-engineered what was, and wasn’t, successful. Therefore, there is value to even the worst type of paper, under a particular perspective.
In evaluating the literature, the reader can assign it to be good or bad on the basis of style or the content, or both. However, even presumed bad papers can have a value. The style may force you to focus to find the content, or uncover the author’s thesis. Cases of incorrect or falsified data can highlight what is real, and relevant. Instead of focusing on assigning a subjective value to a paper, such as “good”, or “bad”, perhaps it is more important to find and identify the useful nuggets that each publication contains,
