Mike Quinn

[_rcrocket]

How deliciously ironic. I am reading this thread and replying to it from the Reading Room of Yale's Beinecke Library where I am working on the Mike Quinn papers. To quote the historian of Mormon studies I'm working with, Don Bradley, the Quinn papers are a "friggin' goldmine of riches." I concur. The depth and scope of his research is astonishing (as is his disciplined ability to index and cross reference his notes--something which speaks to his meticulousness as a researcher).

I don't really dispute his qualifications as far as they go. I have some concerns, which the Wall Street Journal pointed out. He doesn't publish at academic powerhouses, thus his work isn't closely read by scholars before publication.

He is undisciplined, rather than disciplined. I have his works -- most of them -- and it seems to me that no editor has really put a heavy hand on his later works. His Clark books -- now there is fine writing. But, what happened after them? There's a lot more to being a historian than "indexing and cross-referencing notes."

[_Mister Scratch]

How deliciously ironic. I am reading this thread and replying to it from the Reading Room of Yale's Beinecke Library where I am working on the Mike Quinn papers. To quote the historian of Mormon studies I'm working with, Don Bradley, the Quinn papers are a "friggin' goldmine of riches." I concur. The depth and scope of his research is astonishing (as is his disciplined ability to index and cross reference his notes--something which speaks to his meticulousness as a researcher).

I don't really dispute his qualifications as far as they go. I have some concerns, which the Wall Street Journal pointed out. He doesn't publish at academic powerhouses, thus his work isn't closely read by scholars before publication.

Which scholars do you have in mind? Actual historians and academics, or the clowns at FARMS?

[_skippy the dead]

What academic publisher has Dr. Quinn published his books at? Name one.

Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Which work? Any others?

For our sports fans at home, here's a recap:

Bob: Name an academic publisher

Rollo: Okay - Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Bob (to himself): *crap - I should have known the answer before I asked the question. I know, I'll move the target, then maybe nobody will notice that my challenge was met.*

Bob: Which work? Any others?

Bob (to himself): *There, that oughta do it. Now I can get back to accusing anonymous posters of cowardice and condemning them to hell.*

[_Blixa]

He is undisciplined, rather than disciplined. I have his works -- most of them -- and it seems to me that no editor has really put a heavy hand on his later works. His Clark books -- now there is fine writing. But, what happened after them? There's a lot more to being a historian than "indexing and cross-referencing notes."

Really? There's more to it than that? What exactly is your problem, Bob?

I've worked in academia for 20 + years. I think I might have an informed opinion on scholarly skills and discipline. I'm looking---right now----at a series of card indexes that blow my mind in terms of their level of thoroughness, order and usefulness. This kind of painstaking care taken with research notes, care so that the notes themselves are not just self-readable but actuallyuseful to other scholars is highly unusual to say the least. Quinn's work is marked by a kind of scholarly generosity with his time and material I've only seen elsewhere in the work of Dale Morgan. This is work done entirely outside of the kind of concerns, with academic brand names for example, that seem to mark your retorts.

I don't care if you dispute Quinn's interpretations or pontificate about "style"---whatever. On the most basic, and probably most important in the long run, level, Quinn is an impressive scholar. On another level, how one understands what scholarly work is---individual property or collective commons---Quinn's work is unusually democratic.

[_guy sajer]

What % have you run to ground?

I ran a social sciences statistical program to generate a random number of footnotes which I could check so that I could formulate a conclusion based upon significance and probabilities. Then, with those numbers, I ran to ground about 14 random footnotes. I can thus state that with a 1.5% margin of error there is a significant error in Quinn's footnotes.

Or, perhaps, instead I ran to ground about three of them relating to my ancestors and struck gold on all of them.

I can't recall which I did. One or the other.

Do you have examples per chance?

Not really; they related to some crimes in Springville and Spanish Fork. Indictments, convictions.

It seems odd to me that one would reference a work that one does not think is fairly accurate in what is says or portrays.

It seems odd that you think it would be odd. I may think Bertrand Russell is an illogical atheist but if he says something about Christianity with which I agree, and it supports my thesis, you bet I'd cite him because it is coming from the enemies' camp. Citing people of like mind is like preaching to the choir.

rcrocket

I'd be curious how you calculated the 1.5% margin or error. I'm guessing that you pulled this number out of the air.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

What academic publisher has Dr. Quinn published his books at? Name one.

Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Which work? Any others?

Same Sex Dynamics, published in 1996 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Same Sex Dynamics, published in 1996 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Here are a few more:

He's published essays in Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America's Western Past (Norton, 1992), Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences, the Family, and Education (University of Chicago Press, 1993), New Encyclopedia of the American West (Yale University Press, 1998), and American National Biography (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

[_John Larsen]

What % have you run to ground?

I ran a social sciences statistical program to generate a random number of footnotes which I could check so that I could formulate a conclusion based upon significance and probabilities. Then, with those numbers, I ran to ground about 14 random footnotes. I can thus state that with a 1.5% margin of error there is a significant error in Quinn's footnotes.

Or, perhaps, instead I ran to ground about three of them relating to my ancestors and struck gold on all of them.

I can't recall which I did. One or the other.

[

You can't make any statistically significant claims about the population based on a single sample. You should know that. Besides, how did you arrive at n=14? What was the null hypothesis?

John

[_Bond...James Bond]

Same Sex Dynamics, published in 1996 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Here are a few more:

He's published essays in Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America's Western Past (Norton, 1992), Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences, the Family, and Education (University of Chicago Press, 1993), New Encyclopedia of the American West (Yale University Press, 1998), and American National Biography (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

U. of Chicago? Yale? Oxford? Never heard of any of these places.

[_rcrocket]

So, the greatest Mormon historian ever has published one book at an academic publisher? And that one is on homosexuality, not specifically Mormonism?

Dale Morgan, Juanita Brooks, Thomas Alexander, Leonard Arrington, Orson F. Whitney -- move over. Anti-Mormons think you are dolts, even though you are heavily published.