Not so much dispelled as elongated.

aka. A Summary Becomes a Critical Review.
This post is part of an assignment and really should not be read.

Apparently, “editors, scientists, and others” (Chernin, 1988) are distracted from their work by a nagging worry about the origins of the Harvard Referencing System. Eli Chernin (1988) offers some respite but not the promised dispelling.

Chernin (1988) convincingly argues that the System orignated in the work of Edward Laurens Mark, in the late 19th or early 20th century — he was a zoology professor and adapted the system used in the Library of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology to reference texts in his written work. ‘Confirmed’ by President ‘Third Term’ Roosevelt (‘Theodore Roosevelt’, 2017) no less. However, whilst there is brief mention of the founding Librarian Louis Agassiz (Chernin, 1988), there is no attempt to explain why this library used such a distinctly different cataloguing structure to other libraries of the period and discipline — including, as Chernin (1988) notes, the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Furthermore, Chernin (1988) admits that the name “Harvard System” remains unexplained. Maybe it was a visiting “English visitor”? Not at all mysterious.

Apologies to any of the aforementioned worriers who may be reading, the mystery remains unsolved. Let’s hope for a breakthrough soon so that the world’s experts can return to their important work.

Chernin, E. (1988) ‘The “Harvard system”: a mystery dispelled’, British Medical Journal, 297 (October), pp. 1062–3.

‘Theodore Roosevelt’ (2017) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt (Accessed: 23 February 2017).

Referencing is a way to connect research with academic output in a way which suitably credits sources, allows the reader to investigate more deeply and gives that output greater credibility.