Writing papers about the Voynich MS

[-JKP-]

...

As for new VMs related papers, I recommend skipping right to the end and looking at the bibliography / references. Think of a Voynichero's bibliography as his/her answer to the question, Who taught you all you know about the VMs? It should be a pretty good indicator of whether they have a comprehensive and up-to-date enough understanding of the basic established facts, to support the new factual claims they're making.

I wish that were true. In an honest world it would be. Unfortunately, I have met people in the academic sphere who cite papers they have never read just to give their own writings some credibility. I have also known people who bypass the place where they actually got the information and cite an earlier (less complete) source to hide their actual source (doing an end-run around a contemporary researcher).

I've seen some pretty ugly behavior in academic circles. An acquaintance of mine almost lost a masters degree because her research partner ran off with all the research, most of which my acquaintance had done. Professors are sometimes guilty as well. One professor gave 'assignments' to his students to collect research on index cards (he was an older low-tech professor) and the grade was based on volume. Did the students learn anything from it? Not much. He was having them do research for his papers without telling them what he was doing. Freshman go to university with a lot of trust and don't always recognize that they are being used.


Based on experience, I have become suspicious of almost everything I read, which is why I usually read every word to make sure it's coherent and cohesive and follows logical premises.

To me the methodology is the most important part. Regardless of the citations, regardless of the conclusions (which can be wrong even if the methodology is good), if the methodology is good there is probably some value in the paper and you don't necessarily have to accept the conclusion (which is often a subjective interpretation of the results). If the methodology is good and well described, you can try to replicate or use the results.