Talk:Joe Nickell

document examiner?
Nickell's conclusion pegging Ingram as the sole author of The Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch is problematic at best. 1) Though Nickell gives an impressive recitation of numbers in Bartholomew and Nickell's book American Hauntings (Praeger, 2015), even arriving at the "educational level" for Ingram! (pg. 10) with his application of a dubiously titled "standard readability formula", his basic methodology is off. Nickell assumes that only M. V. Ingram was the author of the book before he begins his analysis.  As The Authenticated History contains a "book within a Book"--"Our Family Trouble", allegedly written by Richard Williams Bell--Nickell's assumption that Ingram was the sole author of the framing book allows him to arrive at what appears to be a stylistic analysis of what we will call "Framing Ingram"--a construct that may include Ingram and other possible collaborators--and which announces itself in the form of numbers and a loose, impressionistic collection of Nickell's observations concerning "Framing Ingram's" language use. Nickell then proceeds to search for the same numbers and observations to crop up in "Our Family Troubles" and of course they mainly do, and so the conclusion follows that "Framing Ingram"=Richard Williams Bell, QED., and therefore Nickell announces that Ingram is the sole author of The Authenticated History including "Our Family Troubles." Simply put, forensic linguists of the 21st century do not operate in this manner. First they establish a baseline of characteristics, statistical and other, derived from a long sample (corpus) of known (signed, etc.) writings by the author in question. (A good example of this is the attempt to identify certain anonymously written Elizabethan plays as Shakespeare's by establishing a numerical baseline of the characteristics of Shakespeare's known writings and attempting to find this mathematical "fingerprint" in the target plays.) Nickell fails to do this in his analysis, though other, signed writings by Ingram--a prolific newspaper man whose career extended from at least 1869 to 1906--are easily obtainable via microfilm from the State Library of Tennessee for minimal cost. These microfilms do require some time spent in reading and analysis but the rewards are many--not only in the compiling of a true corpus of Ingram's writings to create a reliable statistical and observational baseline but also in an enhanced understanding of the historical and cultural contexts of The Authenticated History. (See Glass in Bartholomew and Nickell's American Haunting pgs. 10--20) 2) Moreover, the field of stylometric analysis is not the cut and dried tool that Nickell seems to need us to believe it is. See, for instance, Coulthard and Johnson's Introduction to Forensic Linguistics (Routledge, 2007), Olsson's Word Crime: Solving Crime Through Forensic Linguistics, (Continuum, 2012), among many others.  For instance, a recent discovery of Dickens' own copies of his magazine "All The Year Round" with the identities of the authors penciled in, revealed the weakness of a recent computational stylometric analysis in its misattributing certain anonymously published stories and poems to Dickens and others before the discovery of the notes revealed otherwise. 3) There are indications that more than one writer was involved in the writing of Ingram's book (see Glass in American Hauntings). I hope that this note will at least give a heads up to Wikipedia's editors re: Joe Nickell's conclusion regarding Ingram as the sole author of the Authenticated History, and will allow the Wikipedia editors to see that this bit of information is not settled at all but still open to question.125.15.51.235 (talk) 15:08, 29 July 2015 (UTC)J. Glass

In his SI article about the Bell Witch Poltergeist, Nickell analyzed the content of the alleged Bell Manuscript for anachronistic references [sic] and word use [sic], comparing the writing styles of Richard Williams Bell, the reported original author, and M.V. Ingram, the reporter who expanded on the story 50 years later. Nickell concludes, "Given all of these similarities between the texts, in addition to the other evidence, I have little hesitation in concluding that Ingram was the author of 'Bell'".[42]

Is this the same guy who wrote a book on forensic document examination? That guy also authenticated the manuscript of The Bondwoman's Narrative, which should probably be mentioned in the article if he's the same person. 67.117.130.181 05:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yup, same guy. 217.44.192.46 08:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I added in a mention of his work as an historical dument consultant since he has had his hands on some very important fogeries. His work in that regard is aat least as interesting if not more so than his work as a skeptical investigator.Lisapollison 18:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree - and his work on ''The Bondwoman's Narrative" was related to one of the most important recent literary finds - the only work by a fugitive slave and probably the first novel by an African-American woman. I added more detail and an article in Salon.com. --Parkwells (talk) 01:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Nickell books
All of Nickell's books have no w/u. Several of these could be fleshed out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mindme (talk • contribs) 20:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * What is "w/u" - articles of their own? Bubba73 (talk), 20:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * w/u = "write up". So their own wiki write up. Mindme (talk) 13:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I have some of those books, and I'm not sure they deserve articles of their own. Bubba73 (talk), 23:14, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Are these books so notable that they merit a WP article? If not, please remove all the red links. I have added an {overlinked} tag. —Cesar Tort 01:55, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't understand how these books got blue links, making it appear that they have Wikipedia articles, when not one does. There is way too much information included for each book, with too many quotes from the publisher, rather than a second or third-party review. Even the description of the books shows that they are repetitious in subject matter, and do not need to be described in such detail. I've deleted many quotes but more editing needs to be done.Parkwells (talk) 20:04, 13 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Nearly all have blue links purely because they are external links to the Google Books entry; they are not Wikilinks. At first I thought these might fall under WP:ELNO and should be removed, but then I found that MOS:LISTSOFWORKS deals with this situation specifically when it says: "When a book or article is available online through a site such as Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, Google Books, or an open access website, it may be useful to provide a link to the online content so readers can view it."  So they should remain.--Gronk Oz (talk) 06:10, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Fate Magazine
In his book Unexplained! (ISBN 1578590701), Jerome Clark mentions a Joe Nickell writing for Fate, where he exposed the Oliver Lerch story as a hoax. The debunking part makes me think it's the same person, but I wouldn't have guessed he ever worked for a publication with such a non-skeptical reputation!. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lusanaherandraton (talk • contribs) 08:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Unlike the Skeptical mags, FT pays its writers and frequently includes skepticism in its pages. 2603:3001:792:C100:2D73:B767:DD:190E (talk) 15:45, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

He has written for Fate and Fortean Times amongst many other works as a freelancer... most are from the 1970s and 1980s. I will find citations and post them here soon....

SkepticLibrarian (talk) 17:32, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

New Draft of Nickell Article
I've been working on a new draft of Nickell, expanding the article with current references and descriptions/reviews of his books. If anyone else has new content in the works, please post a note here so we can coordinate. Thanks. Sarah — Preceding unsigned comment added by SSEEGGilbert (talk • contribs) 22:11, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

New version will go live in a few minutes. It:
 * removes unreferenced, unverifiable text
 * adds detail to early life, personal and career sections
 * adds several pictures
 * corrects awards
 * adds summaries, reviews and quotes about books
 * adds a section on controversies
 * adds a section on magazine and web articles
 * changes Bibliography to Major Works, with links to published books
 * changes External Links

Page started at 457 words; revised version is 3524. Will be nominated for DYK.

Suggestions always welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SSEEGGilbert (talk • contribs) 22:11, 11 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Lengthy quotes from each book's publisher are not useful. These do not count as reviews, which are supposed to be from secondary sources. The descriptions show the books are repetitive and should be reduced, especially if the book has not been reviewed by a Reliable SourceParkwells (talk) 20:06, 13 July 2020 (UTC).

Alien Timeline cartoon
Is a key available to the individual images on the Alien Timeline? CFLeon (talk) 00:46, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Npov
This article needs a major rewrite to bring it into line with Wikipedia npov policy. Currently written from a skeptical point of view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.133.173.219 (talk • contribs) 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * How is it written from a non-neutral point of view? How does it not follow NPOV? Suggest you read wp:NPOV. I think it doesn't say what you think it says. Jim1138 (talk) 07:36, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Quote farm
I have removed the quote farm template for now. Which quotes should be removed and which ones should stay? Is there a specific quote you object to? &#40;&#40;&#40;The Quixotic Potato&#41;&#41;&#41; (talk) 09:02, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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would like to see him debunk the lost silver mines are they for real john swift lost silver mines 2603:6010:D848:BD00:9D54:371A:5532:DC8A (talk) 01:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
 * He did. See . But this page is for improving the article, not for making suggestions to the subject of the article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:33, 16 December 2022 (UTC)