relation between papers

[gusl]

I want to say that poster of mine is "obsoleted" by a more recent paper. What's the right way to say this?

Comments

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

Your earlier work was obviated by your recent paper.

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

if you want to be bold about it, just go ahead and say "obsoleted". It's a word that does get some use, and I like it and think it should be used. If not, the circumlocution "X was made obsolete by Y" works ok.

supercedes

[simrob.livejournal.com]

CMU-CS-06-129
Symmetric Public/Subscribe via Constraint Publication
Anthony Tomasic, Charles Garrod, Kris Popendorf
Abstract, .ps, .pdf
Superceded by CMU-CS-06-129R
link

[cdtwigg.livejournal.com]

Depending on the circumstance 'subsumed' might work.

[cdtwigg.livejournal.com]

Hm, dictionary.com seems to think that gets time backwards, but maybe that's common usage now?

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

"Supercedes" is if the new paper is identical to the old, except for a bit more work / fewer typos / conference acceptance, so that it's pointless to read the old.

"Subsumes" is if the new paper is rewritten and has more or better results, so that it's perhaps historically interesting to read the old.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

A supersedes B?

[stepleton.livejournal.com]

I disagree with this usage. "Obviate" to me means "render unnecessary", as in "I was thinking of getting a Mini, but my new jetpack obviates the need for a car."

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

"render unnecessary" is pretty much what I want to convey; "render obsolete" is even better.

[stepleton.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that the object of obviate, in the sense that it's being suggested here, typically refers to something specific (and usually disadvantageous) that would have been needed if it weren't for x. Note, though, that you can use it in a way that connotes obsolescence. So, you might see something like:

"The transistor obviated the need for bulky, inefficient, and failure-prone vacuum tubes in computer electronics."

but not:

"The transistor obviated the vacuum tube."

or even

"The transistorized computer obviated need for vacuum-tube computers."

Which is actually correct usage, I think, but not idiomatic, since here the computer is the end goal, and things that you obviate are often annoying necessities you face in pursuit of a (named or unnamed) greater goal. In an example nearer to your case, you might explain that your new approach's use of Johnson splines obviates the need for the Kalamazoo quadrature that the old paper uses, but I don't think you'd use obviate to describe the relationship of the new paper (as a whole) to the previous paper.

[stepleton.livejournal.com]

And, presumably, where Kalamazoo quadrature is not needed, Atlantic City Monte Carlo is also unnecessary. Har har har.

[kvschwartz.livejournal.com]

Is it "supercedes" or "supersedes"? I think the latter.

[stepleton.livejournal.com]

(And of course it should be "The transistorized computer obviated THE need for vacuum-tube computers." Sorry!)

[rdore.livejournal.com]

If you're looking to phrase things more positively, you could say something like that the papers improves upon/updates/expands/extends/furthers/etc the work in the poster.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

No. Making previous work obsolete is a good thing.

This is an English question.

[roseandsigil.livejournal.com]

I'm going to throw in another vote for "supercede", although "obsolete" as a verb is not wrong.

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

I haven't actually used the word in a sentence before. I find the online dictionaries to be sorely lacking. If I got the subject and object messed up, I am sorry. A friend used the word while discussing his MS thesis a few weeks ago, but I don't remember his exact usage. Could the sentence be "My journal paper obviated the contents of an earlier poster session?"

[dr4b]

IMO the proper phrase is "This poster has been made obsolete by the ________ paper".

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. I thought I was going to look it up in the dictionary and make you shirk in dishonor at your idiotic question, MWAHAHA. But in fact, it seems that all the dictionaries say "supersedes" -- even though google confirms that the spelling "supercedes" is also extremely common, especially in technical settings. The dictionary etymology says that it flipped from 's' to 'c' in old french, and back to 's' in modern english. Except for technical people, who I guess missed the memo about making sure to attach an extra curve to the word.

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

I have to actually agree with rdore.