Arthur George Tansley was an English botanist that wrote the article, On competition between Galium saxatile L. (G. hercynicum Weig.) and Galium Sylvestre Poll. (G. asperum Schreb.) on different types of soil in 1917. The study he wrote about was done to analyze the competition between plant species within soils that they naturally inhabit and soils that they don’t. The paper analyzes four types of soils, which were classified based on their texture and the calcium content.
The article was written as a secondary source as Tansley was the writer of the paper, but not the one whom conducted the experiments. The one’s who conducted the experiment was E. M Hume and Captain A. S Marsh. Therefore, as he was not the person who participated in the events of the study, the paper is classified as a secondary source of information.
As this paper was written in 1917; more than 100 years ago, one can imagine it would be different to how a paper would be written today. Comparing how articles are written today, Tansley writes in a more casual tone opposed to the formal tone found in more recent articles. Some other differences between Tansley’s article and more recent articles, are the use of stats to analyse the data and the way he formats his tables and figures. Tansley doesn’t label the figures or tables included in his study, he simply just talks about them. His paper is also missing detailed quantitative information, that is normally included in more recent papers.
Another difference found in Tansley’s article is the amount of sources he has. Today, authors of secondary sources, conduct research and gather information from a wide selection of sources; including them at the end of their papers. However, instead of including a reference or acknowledgement section at the end of the paper, Tansley only cited three people, in a footnote included at the bottom of the page.
Reference:
Tansley, A. G. (1917). On competition between Galium saxatile L. (G. hercynicum Weig.) and Galium Sylvestre Poll. (G. asperum Schreb.) on different types of soil. The Journal of Ecology, 173-179.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 