Ten thousand journal articles later: ethnography of "The literature" in science

Abstract

This paper explores the difficulties of reading large numbers of scientific pa- pers when doing the history of 20th century science and technology. It argues that there is a tension between two modes: that of close reading of key papers and that of citation analysis and other automated modes of mapping the litera- ture. The challenge charting between the two and of maintaining an interpretive approach when confronted with a large body of literature (thousands, or tens of thousands of papers) can be met by approaching The Literature as a kind of in- formant in the anthropological sense.We characterize the literature here as so- mething which can depict the movement of scientific and technical concepts and practices. The paper explores this approach, and suggests ways to track such things as materials and methods sections, the mode of emplotment they employ and the problemetizations they propose or participate in.