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As a researcher, I often need to quote from the previous authors. Sometimes, it happens that there are spelling mistakes in the part I want to quote. I treat this as a human error and write the correct spelling. However, I am unsure how should I handle if there is some (relatively) serious error? For example, I found the word choosed (instead of chose). Should I simply copy with the wrong word, or fix it?

If I change it, the previous authors (from whom I took the quote) may be unhappy. If I do not change it, the reviewers (who would be reviewing my paper) may be unhappy by seeing my lack of care while writing a paper.

This question is different from this, as I am confused whether or not to correct. Since I am writing a formal paper, I cannot use sic.

Originally asked here https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/567310/grammatically-wrong-quote

GoodDeeds
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hola
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    Why do you believe that you can't use "sic" in a formal paper? – Daniel Hatton May 19 '21 at 20:09
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    Does this answer your question? Quoting a typo: Do I really have to do "sic", or can I just fix the sentence? – Anyon May 19 '21 at 20:16
  • @Anyon Ummm... I think it's a bit different. Paper means a competition, so you have to be more careful/politically correct (books are not peer reviewed). Further, the authors are not aware of typo (non native English speaker) in my case, and will not accept (will argue to the point I have to back off) if I point out the mistake. – hola May 19 '21 at 20:31
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    @DanielHatton (Copied from my old comment on the sister website) I don't about other areas, but in science/technology where I work on, would be considered a cheap way to discredit others. It is acceptable/understandable there will be editorial mistakes (the paper is about some other topic, and it is fine so long it makes unambiguous sense). In certain cases, where we see the result is indeed wrong, we say it politically correctly (e.g., we are not able to reproduce the same result). In all likelihood, pointing out editorial mistake would be taken badly by the community. – hola May 19 '21 at 20:33
  • @hola Whether you're quoting from a book or a paper shouldn't really make a difference, but the fact the authors are so unreasonable might. – Anyon May 19 '21 at 20:41
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    @hola A competition? – Azor Ahai -him- May 20 '21 at 16:12
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    It'd be worth checking to see if any subsequent erratum has been issued for the work; if so, you can obviously quote from the corrected material, with appropriate citation. – CCTO May 20 '21 at 18:57
  • @AzorAhai-him Don't get your question – hola May 20 '21 at 19:19
  • @hola you describe a paper as a competition, I don't see why. – Azor Ahai -him- May 20 '21 at 22:03
  • @AzorAhai-him I mean, to begin with, you have to show better results than previous authors, faster than anybody else does. – hola May 21 '21 at 10:21
  • I strongly disagree with that analysis but don't have the space here to explain how science works – Azor Ahai -him- May 21 '21 at 14:36
  • @AzorAhai-him Well, science works differently. Unfortunately in my small world, researches are of this kind. – hola May 22 '21 at 12:52

2 Answers2

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On both the original EL&U post and this one, people have asked "why do you believe that you cannot you use "[sic]" in a formal paper? On the EL&U post, you wrote:

I don't [sic] about other areas, but in science/technology where I work on [sic], [sic] would be considered a cheap way to discredit others. It is acceptable/understandable there will [sic] be editorial mistakes (the paper is about some other topic, and it is fine so long [sic] it makes unambiguous sense). In certain cases, [sic] where we see [sic] the result is indeed wrong, we say it politically correctly (e.g., we are not able to reproduce the same result [quotes missing in original]). In all likelihood, pointing out editorial mistake would be taken badly by the community.

So the perceived issue is not really about formality, but about offending the original authors. And indeed, quotes with many mistakes will require many instances of [sic] (as above), which hinders readabilty and, I agree, seems rather passive-aggressive.

On the other hand, you absolutely must not "fix" quotes. Even benign changes can cause problems; for example, think about how many well-meaning editors might change "iff" to "if" in a math paper. It is probably acceptable to insert missing words in brackets [like this], but that's probably as far as you can go.

So, to your question, I would suggest the following:

  1. If there is a single mistake you could either use [sic] or (in the case of a missing word) insert the missing word in brackets. No reasonable author should be offended by this.
  2. If there are many mistakes, you should probably not quote it at all. Instead, summarize it in your own words. As a last resort, if you absolutely cannot avoid quoting a lengthy, error-ridden passage, you could say something like "[spelling and grammar errors in original]"; this would at least reduce the awkwardness to a single sidebar rather than peppering the quote with [sic]s as I did above.
cag51
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2

You can certainly use [sic] in a formal paper. There are plenty of contexts where [sic] is too formal (it is, after all, Latin), but I can't think of any where it is not formal enough.

If there are multiple mistakes, I see no reason why you can't just put a single [sic] at the end of the quotation, and this is much less distracting than peppering them throughout (this also avoids the danger that you fail to spot one of the errors, leaving the reader to worry whether you introduced it). Using [sic] simply attests that you have reproduced the quotation exactly. You don't need to indicate which part(s) you have reproduced exactly, because that should always be "all of it".

If you are using LaTeX, you could even include "sic" in the citation with \cite[sic]{MyRef} after the quote, which will appear as e.g. "This sentence has a typos" [4, sic].

Especially Lime
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