Comprehending comprehension context
It shouldn’t be this hard, internet noise and attribution
This is a one off post that came to mind this morning. I was made aware of this sequence of sentences for understanding the importance of context and comprehension.
A newspaper is better than a magazine.
A seashore is a better place than the street.
At first it is better to run than to walk.
It takes some skill but it's easy to learn,
even for young children.
It is true that you need lots of room.
Beware of rain; it ruins everything.
A rock will serve as an anchor.
If things break loose from it, however,
you won't get a second chance.
The idea is that without being told the context it is difficult to comprehend the meaning of this group of sentences.
The context for these sentences is “making and flying a kite.” Of course, for that context to aid in comprehension the reader (or listener) must know what a kite is and the comprehension would likely be aided by having made or flown a kite (but these last few requirements were not explicitly tested).
My point here is that I came across this without reference to its original source. Which inspired me to find the original source. I searched these sentences online and found many more pages that did not cite the original source - such as:
Context Matters (Perret Roche Partners Blog)
This one gives a cite - but it’s not original. (The Writer’s Mind Blog sites On Being Certain by Burton)
The cite given by the above is a book, I got it, found the passage only to find that it also doesn’t cite the original source of the passage! (Burton passes it off as his own in a published book)
Now - I have a real problem with this - if you don’t cite a direct quote as in quoting a passage such as this one, you really give the impression that you’re the original source (as indicated by The Writer’s Mind blog referring to Burton).
I took my problem to ChatGPT. Turns out ChatGPT, more than even humans, is greatly challenged by a lack of context. It told me that this was an excerpt from a Poem published in 1928 by Carl Sandburg titled: “A Stone, A Leaf, A Door.” - replicated here from the full text also provided by ChatGPT (feel free to skip this as soon as you realize it bears nothing in resemblance to our original passage about Kites):
A stone, a leaf, an unfound door; Of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces.
Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother's face; From the prison of days and nights we came into exile.
To a door then, To a stone, To a leaf.
To the will of a man, To a woman's hair, To the feet of the familiar strangers, To the smile of a face.
To the living fire of the innumerable faces.
To a door, To a stone, To a leaf.
To the passion of a mother's blind and terrible love; To a door, To a stone, To a leaf.
To the near and unknown faces of all the lovers of the many years; To the eyes of the unworthy, To the eyes of the dead.
To a door, To a stone, To a leaf.
To the hands of the living. To the mouth of the dead.
To a door, To a stone, To a leaf.
Of a stone, A leaf, A door.
-Carl Sandburg, 1928
See - providing citation isn’t difficult.
I think the most bizarre of all my search results was seeing this passage on Kites attributed to an author by way of his “Quotes” as a “Quotable Quote” on GoodReads:
Christopher West is a writer, research fellow and Professor at the Theology of Body institute. This Quotable Quote appears on GoodReads from his book called Fill These Hearts: God, Sex and the Universal Longing. That book is not available on Kindle, it’s a Hardcover and is selling for $35. That’s the price that ends my inquiry. While this passage is being quoted from that book - published in 2013 and only 224 pages (that I refuse to purchase) - I’m not sure whether Christopher West is passing it off as his quote. I’m not sure whether GoodReads Quotable Quotes takes the time to find out whether it is giving attribution to someone that isn’t the original unless the writer they believe to be the original doesn’t give attribution. But given the cost, and the topic, and that its theological roots are only described as the “Christian Mystical Tradition” - I’m inclined to not spend the money on this one. (For the sake of pursuit, I’m struggling with this decision and will comment on this once posted should I purchase to update this stream of inquiry.)
I finally came across this academic source from the Division of Academic Enhancement at the University of Georgia on Strategies for Reading Efficiency. It’s most likely a simple oversight or they did not use Adler and Van Doren in crafting their recommendations that bear a striking resemblance to Adler and Van Doren (1942) “How to Read a Book” (since they give no attribution to Adler and Van Doren); however, they do give attribution to Bransford and Johnson, 1972. Interestingly, they don’t give the full citation in a works cited list, they simply provide the citation “Bransford and Johnson, 1972” with no bibliographic information.
But from that lead and the tool scholar.google.com , I was able to uncover this paper:
Branford, J. D., & Johnson, M. K. (1972). Contextual prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall. Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 11(6), 717-726.
Which was worth the effort. It’s a fascinating paper written at a time that short and quick publications were not what people aspired towards. They describe five experiments and how the results from these five experiments inform their understanding on the topic of contextual prerequisites for understanding. Branford and Johnson do not give credit or attribution for the passage on kites. I’m inclined to believe they came up with this passage on kites and should be always given the credit. I’m not sure why I’m inclined to believe this is the original. Perhaps because it’s almost as old as me, and perhaps I’m biased by the age of it, somehow being biased toward a belief that before the internet there was a stronger sense of integrity of authorship. Perhaps because they were writing at a time that five experiments were published as one paper, and we live at a time that one experiment is likely be published in five papers. Perhaps I believe that give experiments as one paper is a sign that what was cared about is knowledge; whereas when one experiment becomes five papers what was cared about is publication. Perhaps this is all ironic coming from someone writing a substack.
This was on my mind this morning. I was reviewing my electronic Zettlekasten (The Archive) and preparing for classes this week where I’ll discuss the importance of context on comprehension and recall in clinical practice and I decided I needed to know the original source of this passage.
Are we living at a time that these details don’t matter any longer? Has the vastness of the Information Age rendered original sources too challenging? Which would be ironic because the ease of inquiry during this Information Age should make tracking such information easier. Or perhaps there is just too much noise and not enough signal - especially when people like me keep filling the internet with such meanderings.