Professional and popular communicators: Norman Wakefield and Edith Coleman.

Clode, D. (2005). Professional and popular communicators: NormanWakefield and Edith Coleman. The Victorian Naturalist, 122(6) pp. 274-281

Popular and professional communicators: Edith Coleman and Norman Wakefield

Dr. Danielle ClodeDepartment of ZoologyUniversity of MelbourneParkville 3010 Victoria

A collection of enthusiasts

The value of an organisation like the Field Naturalists

Club of Victoria (FNCV) is immediately apparent to its

members. As a social organisation it provides an

opportunity for like-minded people to gather together and

share their passions and interests. It also operates as

a special interest group to represent and promote the

values of its members within state and local circles of

government. Unlike purely social and interest groups,

however, the operations of the FNCV also intersect with

one of society’s primary mechanism for knowledge

generation—scientific research.

The origins of professional science

Social collectives of enthusiastic amateurs played an

important role in the origins of professional science

(Harrison, 1999). The pre-eminent scientific


organisations of the day (like the Royal Society of

London or the Academy of Sciences in Paris) were

dominated by wealthy amateurs (Crosland, 1995a). These

“non-professional” scientists laid the foundations of

modern biological science and included the most eminent

and influential thinkers of their time, such as Charles

Darwin, Alfred Wallace and Charles Lyell.

Professional scientists, who were both trained in their

speciality and employed to study their subject, began to

emerge in the late 1700s and early 1800s (Crosland,

1995b). The increasing professionalisation of science

slowly eroded the role of amateurs in knowledge

generation as scientific research has become increasingly

specialised and professional. It is difficult to see

today how the amateur societies which originally nurtured

science in its formative years can still contribute in a

meaningful way to the complex, highly structured and

formalised activity that science has become. Biological

science (which has perhaps always had the strongest

following of amateur enthusiasts), remains one of the

disciplines in which it is still possible for amateur


researchers to make significant contributions to the

field. With its mix of enthusiasts and experts, youth

members and retired professionals, the FNCV provides an

ideal melting pot to study the interface between popular

and professional cultures in biological science.

Popular and professional communications

Written articles are a significant feature of both

popular and professional communication about biological

discoveries and provide an enduring, and easily assessed,

means of disseminating discoveries and knowledge. In

this context, the FNCV journal, the Victorian Naturalist,

offers a concrete means of analysing the type of

information collected by members and the means by which

they have disseminated their knowledge. The extent to

which material published in the Victorian Naturalist has found

its way into the broader scientific literature will form

the basis for this discussion.

I would like to use two well-known figures from the FNCV

history, Edith Coleman (1875-1951) and Norman Arthur

Wakefield (1918-1971), to explore the connection between

the professional and the amateur; between the scientific


and the popular. Both these figures made significant

contributions to both scientific and popular literature

in their lifetimes, particularly within the pages of the

Victorian Naturalist. After an interval of 30-50 years, it is

worth investigating what lasting impact their work has

had in the wider scientific community.

Subject 1: Edith Coleman

Edith Coleman was born in 1875 in Surrey, England. She

arrived in Australia as a girl and initially worked as a

teacher. She joined the FNCV in 1922, presenting her

first paper on orchids the same evening as she joined.

For the next few decades she was a prolific writer and

correspondent. Coleman contributed to a diversity of

newspaper and magazines, such as the Woman’s Mirror, the

Argus, the Age, School Paper and Wild life. She published an

illustrated guidebook to wattles, Come back in Wattle Time

(1935) which was reprinted in 1943.

[Insert Figure 1 about here]

Edith Coleman was not a professionally trained or

employed scientist and the bulk of her writings were

popular in nature. Her contributions to the scientific


literature, however, were substantial. She contributed

many papers to scientific journals including the Victorian

Naturalist, Emu, Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society, Australian

Zoology, Journal of Botany, Australasian Journal of Pharmacy etc. Her

contributions to Victorian Naturalist were impressively

voluminous. She wrote over 135 articles for the Victorian

Naturalist over 27 years—an average of five per year

(Willis, 1950).

Edith Coleman’s work on Victorian orchids remains an

important contribution to the field but it was the

discovery of a remarkable piece of wasp behaviour for

which her work because more broadly known. Coleman’s

daughter Dorothy first noticed ichneumonid wasps

Lissopimpla semipunctata visiting Small Tongue Orchids

Cryptostylis leptochila near their home in Belgrave. Closer

observation revealed that the wasps appeared to be mating

with the orchid. Edith Coleman later verified that all

the wasps visiting the orchids were male and that they

often left a spermatophore. She first published her

findings on the remarkable phenomenon of pollination by

pseudocopulation in the Victorian Naturalist in 1927 (Coleman,


1927). Her paper subsequently came to the attention of

Sir Edward Poulton of the Entomological Society in

England, who reformatted it, with the addition of new

material, into a form suitable for publication in an

international entomological journal, the Transactions of the

Entomological Society of London (Coleman, 1928). His preface to

this paper makes an interesting observation on the

attitudes of the time towards amateurs and/or female

naturalists.

The interesting observations which from the subject of thefollowing paper were first made by Mrs. Coleman’s daughter, butafterwards frequently repeated by both naturalists at Upwey andBelgrave, Victoria. Mrs Coleman has published an account ofthe discovery in the Victorian Naturalist, xliv, p 20 May 1927 andp. 33 April 1928. The present paper was sent to theEntomological Society by Mr AM Lea, together with the Appendixwhich records his own observation and a number of letters fromthe authoress. I have extracted from these letters and otherwritten to me a number of paragraphs which have beenincorporated in Mrs. Coleman’s paper or added assupplementary notes. I regret that there has been noopportunity to consult the authoress on the arrangement, buthope that it will meet with her approval.

In 1949, Edith Coleman was the first woman to be awarded

the Natural History Medallion and she died in 1951. Her

broader contribution to the study of natural history in


Australia is probably immeasurable, as evidenced by the

recollections of Rica Erickson (1999):

She maintains a voluminous correspondence with many peopleyet finds time for field work, photography, to attend lectures andmeetings, visit friends, make jam and write a regular column fora Melbourne newspaper. Devotes much time and patience inobserving nature, insects etc. especially to the study ofpollination of orchids.

The following incident recalled by Jean Galbraith

(1951) illustrates the diffuse and indirect ways in

which a passion for natural history can inspire and

be shared, far beyond the more concrete means of

communication which will be analysed in this

article:

I like to remember a walk with her when, after finding andenjoying many orchids, we stopped at the fence of a little bushgarden, watching the Spinebills among its salvia flowers.“Sometimes,” she said, “when I see a garden like that I find outwho it belongs to, and post them some roots or a packet ofseeds. They don’t know who sends them, but I like to think oftheir surprise, and of my seeds growing in so many differentgardens.

Subject 2: Norman Wakefield

Our second subject is Norman Arthur Wakefield who was

born in 1918 in Romsey Victoria. He trained as a teacher

and used many of his early postings in Gippsland to

conduct field trips. Wakefield was first introduced to

the FNCV in 1938 by W. H. Nicholls. In 1955 he took up a


lectureship in nature study at Melbourne Teacher’s

College. Wakefield completed his BSc in Botany at

Melbourne University in 1960 but subsequently moved into

zoological research, founding the Fauna Study Group of

the FNCV and obtaining his MSc in 1969 from Monash

University on Pleistocene and recent cave deposits. He

maintained a voluminous rate of publications in both the

popular and scientific domain including a weekly column

for the Age which was subsequently converted into a book,

the Naturalist’s Diary (1955, reprinted in 1975).


Wakefield’s commitment to education was evidenced by a

large number of articles in School Paper and Education

Magazine, as well as the production of a series of 54

Nature Study for Schools broadcasts (1961-62). He made

significant contributions to both botany and zoology in

Victoria with the publication of his seminal work on Ferns

of Victoria and Tasmania (1955, reprinted in 1975) and

contributions to many scientific journals such as Emu,

Proceedings of the Royal Society etc. In addition to being the

editor of Victorian Naturalist between 1952 and 1964 (with a


brief break in 1957) he also wrote 126 articles for the

journal over 33 years (nearly 4 per year).

Having begun his interest in natural history as an

amateur, Wakefield became a professional naturalist being

both trained and employed in the area. However, as Keith

Dempster (1987) noted, Wakefield combined elements of

both the amateur and professional in his work.

Norman embodied elements of both [the amateur and theprofessional]. To some extent this alienated him from somepeople in each camp. He was quite open about the fact that thisprime motive for editing the Victorian Naturalist was because ofthe opportunities it provided for him to publish his own articles.This idea is of course abhorrent to scientists who rely on journalreferees to provide a disinterested imprimatur, and it must also besaid that many of Wakefield's articles did not make attractivereading for the general membership of the FNCV. Against that itmight be argued that the articles had some reconciling influence.Professional scientists were persuaded to take the work ofnaturalists more seriously and the club members were given alittle more insight into scientific thinking. I think both theseelements are still discernable in the style of the Victorian Naturalisttoday.

Wakefield came to international attention with the

discovery of a trail of fossil footprints in the Devonian

sandstone of Genoa River (near NSW). These footprints

were found to be 350 million years old and made by an

amphibian about 2-3 feet long (Warner and Wakefield,

1972).. At the time, they were the oldest footprints


known on earth, although they have since been overtaken

by older footprints found in Gippsland in some paving

stones on a local farm.

Norman Wakefield was awarded the Natural History

Medallion in 1962 and died in 1971 in an unfortunate and

untimely accident (Anon, 1972). Many have remembered him

for his ease and enthusiasm with children, while others

recall a less forgiving character (see Clode, 2002).

Keith Dempster (1987) noted:

He wasn’t at ease with strangers or those with whom he hadnothing in common and some people found him taciturn andrather “heavy going”. With those among whom he felt at ease hetalked freely and was always ready to share his vast store ofknowledge about Victorian natural history which was possiblyunsurpassed in its breadth and depth.

Another colleague described Wakefield as:

gentle, cheerful, helpful, open-hearted, honourable, meticulousand tidy, courageous, tenacious of purpose, inspiring confidence… loyal and stalwart. (Willis, 1973),

Understanding scientific communication

Scientific articles are best considered as intellectual

maps (rather than chronologies of events or narratives,

e.g. Dear 1991; Martin and Veel, 1998). They typically

begin by introducing the previous literature and research


to a field, leading into a more and more specialised

discussion which ultimately yields the question or

hypothesis that the scientist wishes to address. After

documenting the methodology used to approach the

question, and the results obtained, the scientist then

discusses her particular findings in relation to previous

research mentioned initially, thereby carefully placing

her own work within the intellectual framework of her

discipline. At its heart, the article contains a claim

to new knowledge (Myers, 1997), distinguished and

identified within the context of previous work and ideas.

Signposting previous research and acknowledging the ideas

of others is thus a vital component of the article as

both a map and as a knowledge claim.

Before publication an article must run the gauntlet of

scientific peers, whose task it is to assess the

knowledge claim and either accept it, downgrade it or

reject it. The more significant the knowledge claim, the

more prestigious the journal in which it is usually

published. Contemporary scientists typically submit

their best works to the most prestigious (broad audience)


journals first, before working their way down through the

more specialist or localised journals until the peers

reviewing the article feel that it has reached a level

appropriate to the knowledge claim being made (Myers,

1997). Journals can thus be informally ranked in order

of importance of the work they contain (See Table 1).

[Insert Table 1 about here]

Although the peer review system is designed to ensure

that knowledge claims are rigorous and valid before

publication (Daniel, 1993), the complexity and rigidity

of the publication process may deter non-professionals

from contributing to the most prestigious journals.

Indeed non-professional contributions are likely to be

viewed somewhat skeptically by reviewers for journals

dominated by professionals. While amateurs and non-

professionals contributions still find a place in the

highly specialized and professional field of scientific

publication, they tend to be restricted to the lower end

of the publication spectrum. But when an amateur make a

significant discovery, does the professional scientific

community recognize their knowledge claim? Is it


possible for material to move up the publication

hierarchy over time in relation to its scientific value?

Citation databases

One way of exploring this question is to examine the

scientific citation databases which record all

publications in the major journals (national and above).

Electronic citation databases first appeared in the early

1990s and offer a reasonably comprehensive coverage of

all articles published since that date. The database

used for this study is the ISI Web of Science (© Thomson

Corporation 2005).

Although some databases have now backdated their

references to the 1970s, few extend beyond this time as

yet. As a consequence, none of Edith Coleman’s papers

are listed in the citation database both because of their

age and because the Victorian Naturalist is not one of the

journals catalogued. Only one of Norman Wakefield’s

articles is listed, his last article published

posthumously in Nature (Warner and Wakefield, 1972). This

should not be seen as a reflection of the value of their

work, however. The publications of Charles Darwin and


Albert Einstein are similarly missing from these

databases.

Because of the importance of articles as a means of

tracing the origin of ideas, the citation databases

include (in addition to bibliographic information and the

summary or abstract) all the references cited by the

article. This function enables scientists to search both

backwards and forwards through the literature by

examining both the articles used to construct a paper and

to search for more recent papers which have cited a

particular article. The cited reference search function

on the Web of Science enables us to examine whether or

not Coleman and Wakefield’s articles are still being used

and cited by modern scientists in their fields.

Analysing their publications

Edith Coleman’s publications are cited in a total of 129

articles. Of these citations, 98 are for Victorian Naturalist

articles. Her most cited papers are her 1927 paper in

Victorian Naturalist (with seven citations) and her paper in

the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London in 1928 (also

with seven citations), both of which were on the topic of


pseudocopulation. Clearly contemporary scientists do not

regard her publication in the more prestigious Transactions

journal as more worthy than the earlier publication in

Victorian Naturalist (indeed, most cite both papers).

Coleman’s paper on pseudocopulation in the Journal of Botany

(Coleman, 1929) also received six citations as does her

paper on Pterostylus orchid pollination in Victorian Naturalist

(Coleman, 1934)

Norman Wakefield’s publications have been cited

considerably more in the literature (231 times), as might

be expected for someone who wrote articles which were

more scientific in nature and who published more

recently. Like Edith Coleman, most of Norman’s citations

are for papers in Victorian Naturalist (168). His most cited

individual paper is his Nature paper (Warren and

Wakefield, 1972) with 35 citations, however his second

most cited paper (28 citations) is the second part of a

revision of antechinus taxonomy published in Victorian

Naturalist (Wakefield, 1967). Part one of this paper

(Wakefield, 1963) received 20 citations.


Citation levels of articles in Nature are

disproportionately higher (an average of 30 per article)

than citation levels in other journals (which tend to

range from 1-8 citations per article). Given the vast

difference in international prestige and exposure between

the Victorian Naturalist and Nature, the difference between

Wakefield’s Nature paper and his antechinus papers in

Victorian Naturalist is insignificant and the latter must

surely rate as being just as successful as the former.

Journal impact

Given the differences in prestige value of journals, it

is worth exploring the hierarchy of the journals in which

articles citing our two subjects are being published.

The ISI calculates an impact factor for each journal

based on the average number of citations received by

papers published in the last year. Uncatalogued regional

journals like Victorian Naturalist are allocated an impact

factor of 0. The normal spread of impact factors extends

from around 0-4 for national or specialty journals up to

about eight or nine for international journals (see table

1). However, the “super” journals Science and Nature have


impact factors of around thirty. Publication in these

journals tends to attract citations by virtue of the

prestige of the journals themselves, thus creating a

somewhat self-inflating impact factor. Anecdotally it is

worth noting that most professional biologists typically

seek to have their papers published in journals with an

impact factor of more than 1.


It is clear from Figure 3 that both Wakefield’s and

Coleman’s are being cited in a full range of journals,

from the lowest-ranking ones (with no impact factor) to

the highest ranking ones. Not surprisingly, Norman

Wakefield’s Nature paper has been cited in a number of

other Nature and Science papers (citing publications in high

impact journals supports the knowledge claim of the

author by implying that his results are on a par with

previous research). However, many of the other journals

citing both Wakefield’s and Coleman’s paper also have

high impact factors. Interestingly, despite having more

citations and a Nature paper, only 39% of Wakefield’s

papers are cited in journals with an impact factor of


more than 1, compared to 46% of Coleman’s papers. This

might be because Coleman’s papers are often cited in

reviews of the literature (which tend to be published in

higher ranking journals) while Wakefield’s papers are

cited in a broader range of papers on active research.

In general, it is clear that both authors are travelling

well in the scientific literature and their contributions

are both well-recognised and well-acknowledged. The

increasing dependence of modern researchers on electronic

databases shows no sign of reducing the value of older

papers (Pechenik et al. 2001) and indeed may facilitate

awareness of older regional papers through cited

reference searches. The Victorian Naturalist has clearly

served its function as a conduit for the flow of

information between the amateur and professional worlds

of natural history and biological science and there is

every reason to feel confident that it will continue to

do so into the future.


References

Anon (1972) Naturalist dies in tree fall, The Age, 25September, p2.

Clode, D. (2002) Norman Wakefield, In Ritchie, J. andLangmore, D. (eds) Australian Dictionary of Biography: 1940-1980, Pik-Z, Volume 16: 461

Coleman, E. (1927) Pollination of the orchid Cryptostylisleptochila, Victorian Naturalist, 44: 20.

Coleman, E. (1928) Pollination of an Australian orchid bythe male Ichneumonid Lissopimpla semipunctata Kirby,Transactions of the Entomological Society, 76: 533-9.

Coleman, E. (1929) Pollination of an Australian orchidCryptostylis leptochila F. Muell., Journal of Botany, 67: 96-100

Coleman, E. (1934) Pollination of Pterostylis acuminata R.Br.and Pterostylis falcata Rogers, Victorian Naturalist, 50: 248

Coleman, E. (1935) Come back in wattle time: an illustrated handbookto our Australian wattles, Roberston and Mullens: Melbourne.

Crosland, M. (1995a) The development of a professionalcareer in science in France, Studies of Culture of Science inFrance and Britain since the enlightenment, Variorum: AldershotUK.

Crosland, M. (1995b) Explicit qualifications as acriterion for membership of the Royal Society; Ahistorical review, Studies of Culture of Science in France andBritain since the enlightenment, Variorum: Aldershot, UK.

Daniel, H. D. (1993) Guardians of science: fairness and reliability ofpeer review, Weinheim: New York.

Dear, P. (1991) The Literary Structure of Scientific Argument: HistoricalStudies, University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia.

Dempster, K. (1987) Personal communication to JohnNicholls, State Library of Victoria ManuscriptCollection (SLV MS 12267).


Erickson, R. (1999) Personal communication to SheilaHoughton, Manuscript in the FNCV library.

Galbraith, J. (1951) Edith Coleman: A personalappreciation, Victorian Naturalist, 68: 46.

Harrison, C. (1999) The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth CenturyFrance, Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Martin, J. R. and Veel, R. (1998) Reading Science: Critical andfunctional perspectives on discourses of science, Routledge: London.

Myers, G. (1997) Text as knowledge claims: the socialconstruction of two biology articles, in R. A. Harris(ed) Landmark essays in science: case studies, Hermagoras Press,New Jersey.

Nicholls, J. (1987) Norman Wakefield, Gippsland HeritageJournal, 2: 42-5.

Pechenik, J. A., Reed, J. M. and Russ M. (2001) Shouldauld acquaintance be forgot: possible influence ofcomputer databases on citation patterns in thebiological literature, Bioscience, 51: 583–8.

Ward, G. M. (1972) Norman Arthur Wakefield: Anappreciation, Victorian Naturalist, 81: 285.

Wakefield, N. A. (1955) Ferns of Victoria and Tasmania withdescriptive notes and illustrations of the 116 native species, FieldNaturalist’s Club of Victoria: Melbourne.

Wakefield, N. A. and Warneke R. M. (1963) Some revisionin Antechinus (Marsupialia)-1, Victorian Naturalist, 80:194-219

Wakefield, N. A. and Warneke R. M. (1967) Some revisionin Antechinus (Marsupialia)-2, Victorian Naturalist 87: 69-99

Wakefield, N. A. (1967) A Naturalist’s Diary, Longman:Melbourne.


Warren, J. W. and Wakefield, N. A. (1972) Trackways oftetrapod vertebrates from upper Devonian of Victoria,Australia, Nature, 238: 469.

Willis, J. H. (1950) First lady recipient of naturalhistory medallion—Mrs Edith Coleman, Victorian Naturalist,67: 98-100

Willis, J. H. (1964) Latest two recipients of theAustralian Natural History Medallion, Victorian Naturalist,81: 192-4

Willis, J. H. (1973) Vale, Norman Arthur Wakefield,Victorian Naturalist, 90: 103-5.


Super-journals—International journals with a multi-disciplinary audience, highly sought after by scientists of all disciplines (e.g. Nature, Science) and very competitively refereed. Have citation impact factors of around 30.e.g. “The seeds of life in space: evidence of nanobacteria in an asteroid.”

International journals— Journals containing refereedpapers of international significance with either a multi-disciplinary audience (e.g. Proceedings of the Royal Society) or a broad audience within a discipline (e.g. Trends in Ecology and Evolution). Have citation impact factors of 4-10.e.g. “A review of evidence of bacterial life in meteorites.”

National journals—Journals with refereed articles ofprimary significance within their country of origin (e.g. Australian Journal of Zoology). Many of the international journals originated as national journals. Have citation impact factors of 0-4.e.g. “Organic chemical elements in a meteorite of asteroid origin.”

Regional journals—Journals with refereed or unrefereed articles primarily of regional significance (e.g. Victorian Naturalist). Are rarely catalogued for impact factors.e.g. “Crystalline patterns observed in the Blackburn meteorite.”

Local journals, magazines, newsletters—Unrefereed material of local significance, often anecdotal or popular in nature (e.g. Wingspan, Field Nat News). No


impact factors.e.g. “Illustrations of the Blackburn meteorite.”

Popular publications - Anecdotal material or material reporting on established scientific information rather than claiming new discoveries (e.g.Australian Geographic). No citation impact factors.e.g. “Meteor hits Blackburn and excites scientists”

Table 1: Hierarchy of journals with a description and a

hypothetical example of their content


Figure 1: Mrs Edith Coleman

[Source: Victorian Naturalist, 1950, v67, p98]


Figure 2: Norman Wakefield

[Source: Gippsland Heritage Journal, 1987, p43]


Figure 3: The impact factor of journals containing

articles citing the work of Edith Coleman or Norman

Wakefield.

Professional and popular communicators: Norman Wakefield and Edith Coleman.

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