Method
Every claim traces to one original text.
"In the original version" is the most abused phrase on the internet. Here is what it has to mean before we say it in a video.
The rule
A primary source is the thing itself.
The 1812 first edition of the Grimms. The 1740 Villeneuve. A chronicle written in 1316. A primary source is the original text, in the original language, in a scan or a transcription you can open. A blog post that says "in the original Grimm version" is not a source. It is someone else's summary, and if it is wrong, every video that repeats it is wrong with it.
That distinction is the whole method. Most "dark original" facts online are true in outline and wrong in the details that matter: the wrong edition, the wrong year, a motive the text never states, a scholar who never said it. So the checking comes first, before anything is filmed.
The four steps
Before a video is posted
- 1. List the claims.The script is broken into its factual claims, one line each. A date is a claim. A name is a claim. "In the original version" is a claim. "Historians confirm" is a claim. Opinions and readings stay off the list and get said in the video as readings: "I think this story is about."
- 2. Find the first edition.For each claim, the earliest printed text is located and opened: German and French Wikisource, the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, university folklore sites such as D. L. Ashliman's at Pittsburgh. The passage is quoted in the original language and in English, with the page. The link is tested to make sure it loads and actually contains the passage.
- 3. Give a verdict.Each claim is marked supported, partly supported, or unsupported. Unsupported claims are cut or rewritten before filming, never softened with "some say." Where scholars disagree, the article names them and says it is a reading, not a fact.
- 4. Publish the trail.The article goes up here with numbered notes and a bibliography in Chicago style. One link in the channel's bio leads to all of it, so a teacher or a skeptic can test any line in under a minute.
How we cite
Chicago, notes and bibliography.
Articles use the Chicago Manual of Style notes-and-bibliography system, seventeenth edition. A numbered note follows each claim in the text and gives the author, title, edition, place, publisher, year, page, and the link that was actually opened. A bibliography at the end lists every work consulted, alphabetically. Works that were named but could not be read are listed separately under "Named but not consulted," so nothing is cited on hearsay.
Translations from German, French, Italian and other languages are our own unless a published translation is named, and the original is always quoted alongside so a reader who has the language can check the rendering.
If you find an error in a citation, a translation, a date or an image credit, send it to @creep.y_tales. We will fix it and credit you.