Hello,

I contacted this Prof. from a different Uni for his paper and he was very nice and sweet (from his email) to forward me his paper (which is not available online).

Now, I'm a bit worried to 'disagree' with him or I'm being overly critical and attacking :/

e.g.

Although X has mentioned (so and so), the author has no empirical (something). The author has also not (something). X's method could not be found (something disadvantage/negative).

Would I make any enemies from this? lol :/


*reading back I sound (a bit) silly lol, but I just want some views on this :/

Is this for a paper or for your thesis? If the latter, the reality is that he will probably never read it.

It does feel a bit awkward (I've also obtained papers from authors, which I've turned out to disagree with) but critical appraisal of the literature is important, regardless of how nice people are. Just be really really sure you're right!

Thank you for the reply; yeah, being critical is important. If we don't be critical, then they will say our paper is weak :/

If I had it my way, I'd blast his paper to shreds lol. But I do have it my way; it is after all my paper and my analysis. But still I'm a bit worried : (

It's for both publication and a part of the thesis.

I do think it's important to phrase things courteously - it doesn't mean that you don't point out the flaws in the paper though.

Agreed. The old 'attack the issue, not the person' rule comes in handy. In your original wording, it comes across that you are criticising the author's shortcomings in having failed to do something. Consider instead:
"Though the study by X covered points Y and Z, the absence of empirical data weakens the argument." etc
This then gives you the scope to present your own work as building upon prior work and plugging a gap, rather than coming across as though previous work has been a bit shoddy (even if it has!)

I know the passive voice gets a kicking sometimes, but it can be handy for diplomacy!