atw: Re: Preferred font for coporate staff manuals
- From: Bob Trussler <bob.trussler@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:59:55 +1100
Peter and Michael,
I know that I am entering a dangerous area here, but I would like to add to
this debate.
In geological reports, you see references such as Brown (1995) and sometimes
Green (pers comm).
The pers comm means personal communication, and it is accepted as valid,
certainly in Australia. It means that you spoke to the person with the
relevant knowledge and got some comments, opinions and maybe anecdotes from
them.
Geology is an inexact and constantly evolving science and there may not be a
study that relates to your situation and there isn't the time to do "further
testing in other environments" even if that "would be worth miles more than
all the anecdotes", so you may rely on a pers comm.
In the early days of the internet there were very few studies to rely on.
Jakob Nielsen carried as much weight as Sandy Green up on the fifth floor.
There was a lot of pers comms.
I have had a few pers comms with Michael over the years and would happly
quote his opinion, especially if it related to my situation rather than a
similar but not the same situation that had been studied and written up.
Bob T
2009/11/16 Peter Martin <peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Michael Lewis:
>
> > Finally, don't argue with me about issues that I haven't expressed an
> opinion on.
> >
>
> Fair enough. Mea culpa, and my apologies if collateral damage was done to
> you as an innocent bystander in some areas where you hadn't expressed an
> opinion.
>
>
> But on subjects you +have+ raised:
>
> 1. Anecdotal evidence isn't worth the font it's typed in:
> + Sun goes around the earth.
> + NASA faked the moon landings.
> + Earth is flat
> Good stories. But not grounds for thinking we shouldn't think anymore that
> the earth goes around the sun etc etc... Scientific method don't work that
> way. The human imagination can come up with lots of things that are wrong.
>
> 2. How I wish someone would at least try some controls on some of
> Wheildon's demographic or other variables, instead of just saying there
> might need to have been some controls on them. Yes, he did them in
> Australia. On humans.
>
> Replication of his work and further testing in other environments would be
> worth miles more than all the anecdotes.
>
> 3. Meanwhile, there +is+ some evidence that things don't vary much from
> country to country, which actually may suggest Wheildon's uncontrolled
> demographics may not have been all that crucial. Pick up newspapers from
> Paris, Berlin, etc... all the countries that use the same roman style
> alphabet sets, or rough equivalents. Check the books of adults in other
> countries. Maybe you've actually missed another possibility: maybe it's
> the newspapers, not the kid's books that set up a condition? I doubt it,
> but you're skipping some interesting and available evidence on
> country-by-country similarities, if not differences. Of course, another
> possibility is that the patterns in newpapers in different countries just
> confirm that others have discovered what Wheildon did, in other countries,
> with different readers, different languages, even, through bitter commercial
> experience.
>
> Certainly David Ogilvy seemed to think Wheildon's work had some
> universality, and Ogilvy was using evidence-based research for a long time
> in his advertising businesses in both the UK and the USA. -- the man
> practically invented some audience research techniques.
>
> Again my apologies, for the side swipe when you weren't in the frame, but I
> still think all this speculative stuff about it being culturally based and
> changing, is way off track until tested.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -PeterM
> peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> If you are not an idealist by the time you are twenty you have no heart,
> but if you are still an idealist by the time you are thirty, you
> don't have a head. - Randolph Bourne
> -PeterM
> peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long. -
> Boris Yeltsin
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--
Bob Trussler
Phone 0418 661 462
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