Citing sources of sentences

Question

This question was recently asked “She ran… , her nose pressed against the glass” Are the actions simultaneous or consecutive?. Edwin Ashworth (correctly in my opinion) asked the OP for surrounding sentences. I also asked for the source.

I have noticed many people post sentences asking if they are "correct." Sometimes they cite a source, but most of the time, the OP does not cite a source and people don't generally ask for one. Then the guessing and hypothesizing start. I've noticed in many of these questions the OP doesn't respond to requests for further information, or doesn't mark an answer as "best answer."

I feel that answering whether or not a sentence is correct or not is largely dependent on seeing where it came from. It is more likely that if the sentence came from The New York Times or The Economist or even Harry Potter it is more likely to be "correct." If not, we can see that there is a typo that clarifies things or the surrounding context helps see that the sentence is "correct" but could have / should have been written in another way, or perhaps the sentence is an example of BrE / AmE / IE, etc. Sentences that are made up or invented (in my opinion) stand a greater chance of being ungrammatical or illogical. In the example I cited above, if the OP answers, "I just made it up." then it is easy to answer by explaining "Sentences in English should have this construction..." If we don't know the source, then people need to make an assumption that it did come from a source and the answers will have a "justification" feel or will try to figure out what the original writer of the sentence meant.

I feel that we should ask for sources. If one can't be provided, I feel that is OK but it must be stated in the question that "This sentence is invented." The sentence could have been invented because the person is reading a grammar book and wants to know if their invented sentence complies with what they were learning. Answers to these kind of posts are valuable because they provide help to others who may be thinking the same thing...usually questions about certain grammar points are common. For example present perfect, semicolons, or the recent question about past progressive and the use of "when." past progressive with dependent clause -- dependent clause types in the face of ambiguity

Should we be asking for sources? Should a question be closed if, after a reasonable amount of time, the OP can't provide a source or explanation?

Answer 1

I can understand your desire for more information. I'm sure there are a lot of things I'm overlooking in this answer. However... no one is forced to answer a question they feel is inadequate. If you think a question is deficient, you have a number of options:

• Comment (if they don't respond, you tried)
• Google the sentence for a source
• Down vote (with or without a comment)
• close vote if you have sufficient rep (Is it unclear? Is there lack of research? Custom option? Some of the latter are quite amusing.)
• Skip the question
• Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show

What you can't do for the most part, though, is tell other users if they should or shouldn't answer. It won't work, because there are too many users on this site, and no matter what you want to impose on them, new users ignorant of your wishes will answer it anyway.

Should we be asking for sources?

You certainly can ask for sources or context. It doesn't mean you'll get an answer.

Should a question be closed if, after a reasonable amount of time, the OP can't provide a source or explanation?

Given that you have the option to walk away, that strikes me as somewhat authoritarian. It also feels to me that you might change your answer based on the source. The New York times once wrote that an author was married to her dog. That it was the NYT didn't make it more likely to be correct.

FYI, Googling for a source is exceedingly easy to do (copy, paste adding quotation marks, et violà!) It gives me a source 99.999% of the time (top hit). I often edit in the source and the context by doing this.

Trying to get an entire community to change their behavior because you feel something is missing is not going to work, especially when it's an interesting (and amusing) question, great answers are being given, and new users who don't know the site etiquette will constantly break it anyway.

_{P.S. thanks for asking this question; I totally missed out on the fun, and you called it to my attention.}

Answer 2

We do ask for context. I have done so hundreds of times, and I'm far from the most productive reviewer.

I've decided it's a waste of time. Perhaps one in fifty new posters ever even replies to my comments, perhaps one in a hundred makes the suggested improvements. It's much more productive simply to track down the source and insert it my own damn self, and the same goes for adding references to bad answers.