Investigating what is actually the impact of published scientific articles, I found several references about a related, disturbing phenomenon. It seems that it is not at all unusual for researchers to cite papers that they have not actually read.
An empirical study, which I attach below, estimates that “only about 20% of citers read the original” (Simkin, M.V. & Roychowdhury, V. P. (2003). “Read before you cite!,” Complex Systems, 14, 269-274.)
These authors arrive at that conclusion after doing a statistical analysis based on repeated misprints in citations. Identical misprints would be the result of copying someone else’s reference, without reading the paper in question.
“With the advent of the Internet, the ease with which would-be non-readers can copy from unreliable sources, as well as would-be readers can access the original has become equally convenient, but there is no increased incentive for those who read the original to also make verbatim copies, especially from unreliable resources,” the authors say.
Around 1,5 million articles are published annually. A recent study found that 80% of the papers in medical fields published in 2005 had received at least 1 citation 2 years after publication. They were followed by natural sciences and engineering (60%), social sciences (55%), and humanities (less than 10% cited within a two year window) (Larivière, V. & Gingras, Y. (2009). “The decline in the concentration of citations, 1900–2007”. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 60(4), 858–862).
Do you think that the habit of copying / pasting references without reading the cited papers is something frequent? What about your field?
What would be, in your view, the causes and consequences?
Citing sources that were not read is common practice at Academia. It happens in engineering also, especially when books are cited.
There is similar thread at Academia. I attach it because of many answers.
http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28466/do-you-need-to-read-a-whole-article-before-citing-it/28468
Citing sources that were not read is common practice at Academia. It happens in engineering also, especially when books are cited.
There is similar thread at Academia. I attach it because of many answers.
http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28466/do-you-need-to-read-a-whole-article-before-citing-it/28468
Thought I would raise my voice.... I know and am aware: I haven't published well or many "scientific" papers as a first author (because it was not my duty....except to "assist " with an "ancient /ancillary" technology" and to work hard on making "morphological - ultrastructural visualization" possible), but anyway:
WHEN I ever cited something in a publication or manuscript - (sometimes I was asked "if it were necessary to mention this or that that reference" really!) - recipe, method, technique or any other relevant data -
I was in possession of the relevant article(s), the original article in copy (as print or digital edition.... ). Many times I was able to find out many copyists and what the citing authors
i) did not understand (because they made erroneous conclusions or included wrong text interpretations or what these authors
ii) just "copied opinions" literally from the abstract of a cited article.
But perhaps this isn't appreciated nowadays .... I guess....
To comment on Ljubomir's statement, "it happens in engineering also, especially when books are cited" I would like to say that nobody must know the whole content of the whole book....BUT: if I cited (the/an) author(s) work of a certain chapter I naturally already had read and worked out the whole chapter on/by reading printed or digital copy (and collected the very same to my e-digital library....). Also - when writing my own recipes for the used techniques in Light microscopy and electron microscopy - it was clear and necessary to cite the sources which were inspiring me or where I found either "hard facts" or perhaps a "good idea". Best regards, Wolfgang M.
I don't know how common it is in social sciences, but I know that some authors only read abstracts and cite papers without reading the full papers. One of the causes is lack of access to subscription journals, especially by scholars in some developing countries (where many institutions do not have access). One of the consequences is to cite out of context.
Dear Mr Jorge ,
Personally , I read text books, papers if I read will certainly cite it for using /demonstrating coherence ...
I try not reading too many papers , if I do read I understand it thoroughly.
There are universal concepts i guess we should be able to differentiate it. Quite a lot of it seems to be j#*$* and I have come across some loads of bu#@%$^ in the form of papers.
If understood/read properly , I guess we can articulate our contribution and so I would say read and cite for comparative/competitive reasons.
This is a good question. From the observations given so far in this thread, there is a mixture of scepticism and good faith in the value of the cited works.
@Ljubomir Jacić: Citing sources that were not read is common practice at Academia. The one discrepancy in this observation is that it does not apply to articles in Mathematics, since it is common practice to very sparing in citing other works in such papers. As a rule, it is a definition or theorem from a related work that is cited in Mathematics papers. In fact, I doubt whether any Mathematician would cite any publication without having read the publication. The fact that Math. articles have low numbers of citations indicates the care with which Mathematicians include any citation in a publication. Evidence of the validity of the contention concerning the tendency of Math. articles to have a low number of citations can be found in
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44669161_The_mathematical_review_system_Does_reviewer_status_play_a_role_in_the_citation_process
It has recently been found that one of the highest citations rates occurs in Information Science. See, e.g.:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262151719_Difference_in_citation_rates_by_subject_areas_of_LIS_in_Korea
Article The mathematical review system: Does reviewer status play a ...
Conference Paper Difference in citation rates by subject areas of LIS in Korea
My fields of research are radiation physics and atomic collision physics and think that the authors should read at least the relevant portions of references they cite. In an occasion of mentioning the earlier history of the relevant research, citing old references without reading them might be allowed. When such a history was reviewed by a recent paper, however, you can read and cite only that paper and save yourself citing without reading.
I was trained in a very good way by one of my Finland supervisors. Before writing the paper/starting the work I used to collected all literature reg. that subject and use to make table eg. if it is growth related
S.No, Gene (full name), Gene (shortcut), Animal Category, Function, Habitat (SW/FW) Parts of the body where it express, Temperature, Feeding, Body size, Gene Microsats, conclusion/Remarks.
Likewise first my literature collection is completed later I started the work followed by analysis. The same procedure I follow. By seeing this my Iceland supervisor appreciated a lot and told it is very good practice Jetty.
Jose,
I agree with Pierlorenzo. It depends on what is being cited. In archaeology many times we are skimming through many reports looking for similarity of artifacts, components, and/or features. Thus we skim through the reports, then read the summaries and any sections that are relevant to our research. However, many times there are several of us doing this: one looking for comparable lithic artifacts, another ceramic artifacts, another cultural affiliations, yet another botanical comparisons, etc. There is no need to read all of a report in order to accurately assess and assimilate the needed information to be cited. If the report seems to be interesting, then I will read it at leisure after my report or paper is written.
While we do use many of the same references in multiple reports, thus we get familiar with most everything that is within those referenced reports/papers, the shear volume of references that we often have to consult and use make reading each one cover-to-cover almost impossible. For example, one of my archaeological survey reports is 214 pages long without the appendices, which are maps, tables, and equipment specs. A total of 28 of those report pages are references consisting of 279 separate entries. That is 279 references to write 214 pages of report text and graphics. One of my ethnographic papers current in publication is approximately 38 pages long, of which about 11 pages are graphics and 10.5 pages are references. That is 104 references for 16.5 pages of text.
How common is in your opinion to cite papers without having read them?
Dear colleagues,
I think, it may be possible for citing a reference without reading the entire manuscript. Sometime, I was citing articles by just reading its abstract, as it is mentioned by Dr. Emeka. Like Prof. Tatsuo Tabata's description, one of the reasons may to show the historical point of a idea, method, technique, data, etc. used in my study. Of course, I absolutely agree with the full reading recommendation in order to keep the citation appropriateness, but it doesn't mean that without having read the cited references is an inappropriateness. It is depended on the what, why, who, where, when, and the how of the citation.
A good discussion, thank you.
Best regards,
In the first printing of Phylogeny, Ecology and Behavior (Univ. Chicago Press, 1991), my co-author - Deborah A. McLennan - was listed as Debrah H. McLennan, but only on the spine of the book. If you search for citations to the book listing DR Brooks and DH McLennan as authors, you'll know who never even opened the book before citing it. The error was corrected in the second printing, so we do not know the actual number of people who cited it without reading the contents.;-)
Hi Dr Brooks.=
You caught the thief(figuratively) with the goods. There is no better evidence . You can rest you case your honor.
Yes, it is a common practice of copying and pasting references without reading the entire manuscript.. As a result, authors are committing serious mistakes in their manuscript. Original references should be consulted and read thoroughly. Simply copying references from some publications is a wrong practice and is extremely unscientific.I have raised such issues in letter to Editor published published articles during 2013 and 2014 in my profile
Article Novel fusion method for direct determination of uranium in i...
Article Anomalous silver concentration in volcano-plutonic rocks
Research Comments on: Studies on effective decomposition of monazite ...
Research Uranium and other heavy toxic elements distribution in the d...
Article Separation and preconcentration of rare earth elements in ge...
Article Simultaneous separation and preconcentration of rare earth e...
Article Simultaneous separation of rare earth elements from geologic...
Article Studies on effective decomposition of monazite minerals by v...
Article Separation and preconcentration of rare earth elements in ge...
Firstly, thanks for getting this discussion started! It is interesting to see how others handle this problem.
For myself, I would differenciated between "citing" from a third source and citing without reading the whole article. Getting to know about possible literature sources from other articles may be an inspiration for reading them, but shouldn't be used as a base for citing them. On the other hand, very often articles are so far away from my own topic that reading and citing the abstract may be enough to describe the differences.
Of course it would be better to read everything completely. But opposite to George Stoica's statement, most articles are not available at my university of applied sciences. Ordering them via the library means filling a long, complicated form and waiting for some weeks or even longer to get them. If it is absolutely clear that the respective paper won't be of any use for me, and I just need to say something like "they are working on cotton, we are doing the same experiment with polyester", I don't find it unethical to cite it due to the abstract.
Yes, I think that it is common practice for many people to cite the references without reading. My field is chemistry basically catalysis i.e. photocatalysis. In my view, it has a great impact means without knowing the depth of the scientific output of a journal, we cite and these are useless.
I humbly believe that it might be possible to read a part of a paper/research where you need to know and then cite the paper. However, undoubtedly, it is recommended to read the whole work before citing it, but I guess that is not possible at all times to read every single paper from A to Z indeed. Therefore, I think you may cite the paper once you read parts you need in your work. But the catastrophe is that it is nowadays common to cite papers without even reading a single line of the paper, it is rather copying / pasting it from another paper. Last but not least, I strongly believe that we academicians should act accordingly.
Regards,
Citation manipulation, suppression of citations, addition /deletion of authors is a serious academic fraud. Manipulation of Doctorate degree based on case history publication is a serious academic fraud.
Article The Role of GIS in Spatial Modelling of Multi-Disciplinary G...
Working Paper Letter to the Editor: Query related to publication titled “T...
Dear All, It is a very common practice in research arena. People cited paper if it is cited in any other paper, without reading it. That was due to non availability of hard copies of papers in era when computers, google and RG were not available. Now this practice is going to reduce. Thanks
I can see some problem here, which are
- The cite reference may be just to credit who started the idea, but the original paper has only historical importance.
- Just to list who has traveled the same road or its tributaries before. You can question how relevant is their content
- Some just add a long list to give the impression that the work is very well reached. In reality some of references are irrelevant.
- Citing others expecting to be quoted by them
The advancing of lectures on the academic ladder entirely depends on the citation. Can you blame them for playing the game.
During my university days, I knew a professor ( very famous one) who never (or rarely) read other people's work and his reference list was scanty most of the time. But he was important enough to shake off criticisms.
I think citing sources that were not read is not a very common practice. It rarely happen with those who are not professionals in conducting and writing scientific research. In general, I believe that reading an article before making any citation is essential.
It is usual thing for many articles. Only abstracts have been read. Why? Since in Introduction the author must demonstrate that he is an expert in the field. Often authors cite only sources which have been published in the limited number of the most known journals. instead to criticize, they ignore "weak" publications.
I feel sometimes reading of abstract is enough, some times after reading of full paper, the reference included in read paper may be choosen
There is one publication in : 1. Vijay Kumar, Sanjay Kumar, Naveen Kumar and P.N.Bangroo, J. Indian Chem. Soc., 2013, 90, 2147., citing irrelevant references copied and pasted from EARFAM-publication without citing it. .
What is the purpose of citing references in research publications? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_purpose_of_citing_references_in_research_publications [accessed Sep 18, 2016].
I think (wishful thinking?) it is not that common to cite papers without reading them. However, reading source articles likely becomes an increasing limiting resource to some scholars under high publication pressure (be it external or self-imposed pressure).
A related question could be how common it is that authors re-read cited papers they cite. Many papers are cited during a researcher's career lifespan, often referring to different aspects of the cited papers.
A bigger, but related, problem is not only citation copying, but also citing findings that do not appear in cited articles or citing the findings incorrectly. The worst possible outcome then is that researchers start to copy citations that were cited incorrectly.
Simply copying references from some publications is a wrong practice and is extremely unscientific.
Article Comments on Uranium Concentration in Groundwater in Hisar City, India
Article Letter to the Editor: Comments related to the publication ti...
Dear José Eduardo,
In mathematics one should distinguish between citations related with the history of the topic with ones that are related with the assertions that the author is proving. If some historical fact is widely accepted then there is no need to go to the sourse and check if it is true. Some time ago we were discussing with two elder colleagues if the author should check the proof of a theorem which is used in the proof of some result in his paper. I can say that the opinions were divided.
My opinion is that a professional mathematician should check the proofs of all results that he is using in his deductions. It doesn’t mean that all around think and act in that way.
This is fine issue!
Should I cite the primary sources if I have come across them in a secondary source?
The original (primary) source must be read!
http://www.editage.com/insights/should-i-cite-the-primary-sources-if-i-have-come-across-them-in-a-secondary-source
Having read an article is not a quality attribute for a citation.
You may have read it but you didn't understand it.
You may have understood, but there are mistakes in the article that you could not notice.
You may not have assured yourself about the origination and the circumstances of the cited article.
You may spend a lot of time reading unnecessary details of research which is only periphericly to your central theme.
To abstract, to summarise, quick reading are important scientific skills. If you combine it with a responsible, sensitive handling of your citations it would achieve a better result than reading all your sources verbatim.
I strongly agreed with Ritt. TheTime factor, ability to understand and sometimes getting the original source of a citation are barriers to reading an entire source of citation before citing. moreover, it is expected that a researcher should only search for and collect data relevant to the study to be undertaken.
Dear José Eduardo, thanks for sharing another good question. It is always convenient to be truly aware of pertinent/relevant previous works in the scientific area and scientific areas related with the subjects under consideration, and fully understand the contents of the references or parts of the references that are cited. I agree with you that it seems that the citation of other works looks sometimes some kind of formal cosmetic for fulfilling common accepted publishing practices. However, the most important is how the previous scientific works are understood and cited, which must be performed in an intellectually honest mode and as clearly as possible.
See “Citing References in Scientific Research Papers” in the link bellow "compiled by Timothy Allen" (2000). An excerpt:
“It is important to properly and appropriately cite references in scientific research papers in order to acknowledge your sources and give credit where credit is due. Science moves forward only by building upon the work of others. There are, however, other reasons for citing references in scientific research papers. Citations to appropriate sources show that you've done your homework and are aware of the background and context into which your work fits, and they help lend validity to your arguments. Reference citations also provide avenues for interested readers to follow up on aspects of your work -- they help weave the web of science. You may wish to include citations for sources that add relevant information to your own work, or that present alternate views.”
http://tim.thorpeallen.net/Courses/Reference/Citations.html
I think it is a common practice for researchers to cite papers without properly reading them. Sometimes it is because of the lack of availability of full text for free.
I also agree with the topics that lack of time and not available publications are the main factors because a researcher doesn't read the texts; I also think that it is very common in academia citing the most notorious work, very superficially explained and referenced. All the best, Marisa
This is an excellent question. I´d rather not cite a paper or book (which I know that exists) but I have not read at all. Nevertheless, in the case that a trustworthy researcher has commented or properly mentioned it, I have the chance to use the sometimes odious resource of “citing a source within a source” (apud). The lack of access to subscription journals, as usually happens to me, do not justify to cite an article just by reading the abstract. Love RESEARCHGATE for the golden opportunity it offers us to have publications freely accessible to readers all over the world, without making any difference between developed or undeveloped, rich or poor countries, or between a novel or outstanding researcher, granting us the righ (in the research field), to comunicate and to be informed.
Well it is not necessary to read an entire research paper to cite. The abstract is therefore given for every paper which will tell you the gist of the entire research work. If we like the work and think it is related to the work done by us then we read it or else we can cite it. But without reading we should not cite any article according to me, we should atleast read the abstract to understand the gist of that work.
Reading the full article is essential before citing in the research. However it is not common. Researchers usually pick up references from other studies. It is very common in management researches.
It is recommended to cite only the references which are related to the published work, whatever it is not so much as many authors like to put many references in their work, which leads to, they may put some references that are not close to the published work, and some times their knowledge do not exceed the titles of these references .
Hello,
The question is timely and at the same time, leads to other questions. In my opinion, it is wrong to quote someone works that have not read, but to what extent, this reading is done? I understand that you have to have knowledge about the questamos referring to.
Greetings!
Dear José,
I find that in some cases the referees or reviewers of an article suggest to the author to cite an article that it does not have conection with the paper that one sent but only in some semantic similarities. I do not find it correct to accept such suggestions motivated for other interests as increasing the number of cites of a such article but without direct relation with the sent paper.
Thanks for the invitation.
I do not know the frequency in which scientists cite papers without having read them.
If the citation is correct, using only as guide the abstract of the cited paper, I do not see any problem.
But, from my experience as reviewer and reader, many times, some citations are not accurate, either the author/s had read the paper/abstract or not.
And even worse, when there are international scientific journals in which the reviewer’s work seems not to be evaluated. This latter is, unfortunately, a reality.
In biomedicine it is common and unethical that some authors cite references and note in their publications without reading the original. Less common is the situation in clinical medicine, as it is required to read the original to support a diagnosis, comparing common clinical cases with rare manifestation, or rare cases with common symptoms.
This happens in our country when necessity to increase scientific productivity and maintain or improve level at the National Research System (SNI), in addition to adduce overwork when the ruse is discovered, researchers resort to reading only summaries without specifying it so it explicit in its methodology or in the reference list. Consequently, errors in the comparison and interpretation of the articles read incompletely, and therefore bias and errors in their own publications.
When such cases are identified, researchers suffer such exclusion group excellence and the future difficulties to publish in prestigious biomedical journals, in addition to their curriculum resent in qualifying and benefits granted by the SNI.
regards
Dr. Jose Luis Garcia Vigil
En biomedicina es frecuente y no ético que algunos autores citen y anoten referencias en sus publicaciones sin haber leído los originales. Menos frecuente es esta situación en la medicina clínica, ya que se requiere leer los originales para fundamentar un diagnóstico, comparar casos clínicos frecuentes con manifestación rara, o casos raros con síntomas comunes.
Esto sucede en nuestro país cuando por necesidad de aumentar productividad científica y mantener o mejorar un nivel en el Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI), además de aducir exceso de trabajo cuando se descubre la treta, algunos investigadores recurren a la lectura de sólo los resúmenes, sin especificarlo así en su metodología ni explicitarlo en la lista de referencias. Consecuencia, errores en la comparación e interpretación de los artículos leídos en forma incompleta, y por tanto sesgo y errores en sus propias publicaciones.
Cuando son identificados estos casos, sufren dichos investigadores exclusión del grupo de excelencia y en lo futuro dificultades para publicar en revistas biomédicas de prestigio, además de que lo resienten en su calificación curricular y beneficios que otorga el SNI.
Saludos
Dr. José Luis García Vigil
I have attached a good article (Citing sources that were not read or thoroughly understood) from the Office of Research Integrity (ORI):
Generally, when describing others’ work, do not rely on a secondary summary of that work. It is a deceptive practice, reflects poor scholarly standards, and can lead to a flawed description of the work described.
The practice of relying on a published paper’s abstract to describe its contents also fits in the present category. However, there are other scenarios that better illustrate the practice of citing papers that were either poorly understood or perhaps not even read by the author citing it. Let’s go over a couple of examples
The reader should note, however, that there might be instances in which the practice of citing sources that were not read may be acceptable. For example, an author may simply wish to point out a well-known discovery or theory and provide the reader with the original citation. When this is done without misleading the reader into believing that the author read the paper detailing the discovery and is thoroughly acquainted with its contents, then no real harm is done.
http://ori.hhs.gov/plagiarism-25
We report a method for estimating what percentage of people who cited a paper had actually read it. The method is based on a stochastic modelling of the citation process that explains empirical studies of misprint distributions in citations (which we show follows a Zipf law). Our estimate is that only about 20% of citers read the original.
See the Link!
http://www.complex-systems.com/pdf/14-3-5.pdf
Simkin, M. V., & Roychowdhury, V. P. (2012) develop a stochastic model of the citation process, which shows that about 70-90% of scientific citations are copied from the lists of references used in other papers. Citation copying can explain not only why some misprints become popular, but also why some papers become highly cited. They show that a model where a scientist picks few random papers, cites them, and copies a fraction of their references accounts quantitatively for empirically observed distribution of citations.
Full article is attached . It is another interesting article from Simkin & Roychowdhury, authors of "read before your cite", mentioned in introduction of question and Subhash's post above:
Simkin, M. V., & Roychowdhury, V. P. (2012). Theory of citing. In Handbook of Optimization in Complex Networks (pp. 463-505). Springer US.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=DRouXxsAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=DRouXxsAAAAJ:_Ybze24A_UAC
I am curious about how someone can cite a paper without knowing whether it is relevant to their work. I know my reviewers would catch any citation that did not apply to my text and ask me to show relevance. Additionally, many times I have been required to provide a citation for "common knowledge".
In the same sense of speech, as I said in my previous comment, and I still consider unethical unprofessional incurring cite the diversion of unread posts in its entirety; however, there are exceptions to the rule, which express below:
- This behavior can occur when after extensive and strict selection criteria for the purpose of supporting and enriching their own research and future publication, a researcher and potential author documentary research, can not find the original full article and not get it directly from the authors after a direct request by mail and wait a reasonable time.
- Another justification for read only the summary in the native language of the reader or English, is when the item considered relevant and important, has only been published in full in a language little known and difficult to translate into short-term or a not very long term, for example in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Polish, etc.
Either way it is ethical professional, report the situation which could not be obtained and read the article in extensive, and why it still, dared to mention in his list of references.
regards
Dr. Jose Luis Garcia Vigil
En el mismo sentido del discurso, como lo expresé en mi comentario anterior, sigo considerando poco ético y poco profesional el incurrir en la desviación de citar publicaciones no leídas en su totalidad; sin embargo, existen excepciones a la regla, las cuales expreso a continuación:
- Esta conducta puede ocurrir cuando después de una investigación documental extensa y con criterios estrictos de selección con fines de apoyar y enriquecer su propia investigación y futura publicación, un investigador y potencial autor, no puede encontrar el artículo original completo y tampoco obtenerlo directamente de los autores después de una petición directa por correo y de una espera razonable de tiempo.
- Otra justificación para leer sólo el resumen en idioma nativo del lector o en inglés, es cuando el artículo considerado relevante e importante, solo se ha publicado en extenso en un idioma poco conocido y difícil de traducir a corto plazo o a un plazo no muy prolongado, por ejemplo en Chino, Japonés, Ruso, Polaco, etc.
De cualquier forma es de profesional ético, informar la situación por la cual no se pudo obtener y leer el artículo en extenso, y porqué aún así, se atrevió a mencionar en su lista de referencias bibliográficas.
Saludos
Dr. José Luis García Vigil
In my opinion, only by seeing the title or the abstract of the paper many people are citing the papers without actually reading the full paper. it happens only for few publications and not for all.
Dear José,
I cite articles or books which I have understood in the aspect that I refer in my work and believe it is a good aportation to the matter. Other citations without knowledge or without interest I think that they are not ethical.
Some scientists have the luxury of spend almost their entire career studying only a handful of things. I think that social sciences, particularly archaeology and anthropology, draw comparisons and conclusions from a large body of previous work that can not be compared to the other sciences.
As previously noted, I have read the relevant portions of papers and reports that I cite, but reading the total is impossible. I have had four projects in different parts of the U.S. in four months. Each area has different archaeology, different cultures, and different histories. One report has 280 references conservatively estimated to represent 32,000 pages. If only 10% is usable from project to project, the four projects total would require me to read 128,000 pages. That is equivalent to reading 427 three hundred page books in four months. Eventually, if I work in the same areas over and over, I will likely read most of what is in those papers and reports, but in the meantime I have to skim through them looking for relevant material for my projects.
Today it is completely not possible to read all the articles that are potentially of interest to us. Therefore it is very important to sort them: some of them we read 2-3 and more times very carefully, with highlighting some passages; in other articles is enough to read just some parts (at least the Abstract, results, some methods). In my opinion we do not cite papers without read at least the most important parts of them.
While I agree that we should either have read the papers we cite, or at least gained the points we wish to refer to by looking at the actual original, it frequently amazes me that some single/two author books, rather than just reviews in journals have more than a thousand references. I guess most people are better organised than me, but the amount of reading and remembering, even with digital aids , seems almost superhuman.
Dear All
It is very interesting debate fostered by Jorge with this question. I try to summarize how did it developed in three main categories:
1.- It is an unethical and miss-informative practice
2.- It is perfectly acceptable
3.- It is acceptable under certain circumstances
From reading all the answers I re-frame the question in my mind asking me about the objectives of literature review, and doing so I conclude that each category of answer respond to particular objectives. Categories number 2 and 3 are promoted by a sense of urgency and pretend to fit into the "academic world" in consequence It is not surprising to that younger supports more this categories that experienced researchers.
It is absolutely awesome to me that two different models shows how frequently this phenomena could be and inform us that as much as 80% of the citation was not really read.
I live in a developing country where we are very limited to gain access to paid literature but I strongly agree with the first category, Cite without reading is unethical and at least we must recognize it explicitly in our research papers.
Manuel
Dear Manuel:
Thanks for your answer! I think you have accurately summarize the different viewpoints. Certainly, the thread seems to support the hypothesis that citing without reading it is not an uncommon habit.
Another side of the problem is that it also affects the concept of "impact", What is the "real" impact of an article if many times it is not actually read?
Dear Jorge the impact is exactly the measured impact because it is grounded on number of citation in certain time span. Obviously your new question is brushed with a little bit of cynicism and I will agree with you that impact factor o H-index are not measuring what it pretend to measure at the light of the hypotheses posted and supported with literature in this interesting debate that you clever promote. Once again I have to draw on folk system's wisdom: Systems are not good or bad but people who runs them certainly could be.
Then people has exploding the system's gap in order to boost they own impact...
If many cited articles are not read, it is because there are groups or schools that they promote their own work. They suppose that any accepted and published article is good for being published. But the correct thing is to read oneself the cites that one use in its own work of research.
Dear Professor Jorge,
I had this experience of when the citations I’d like to include into my work didn’t agree with the original findings. I suspect the inconsistency occurred because
- a tight deadline for publication didn’t allow much time for rechecking,
- access to the original pieces was impossible,
- it's the blind citing out of the novices’ assumption that anything pee-reviewed and published was accurate.
- it’s just a matter of convenience or carelessness as a result of a weak sense of ethics.
I suspect that following inaccurate citations may explain why some research findings became less effective in solving existing problems, or failed to promote better understanding or some breakthroughs.
I agree that reading at times can get overloaded, but I still believe that reading the original works, or at least skimming them, is a must in order to gear our research works into the right direction, avoid prolonging the misunderstanding, and minimize misleading results.
Sincerely,
Cameen
Findings of attached article entitled: What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior
The general tendency of the results of the empirical studies makes it clear that citing behavior is not motivated solely by the wish to acknowledge intellectual and cognitive influences of colleague scientists, since the individual studies reveal also other, in part non-scientific, factors that play a part in the decision to cite. However, the results of the studies must also be deemed scarcely reliable: the studies vary widely in design, and their results can hardly be replicated. Many of the studies have methodological weaknesses. Furthermore, there is evidence that the different motivations of citers are “not so different or ‘randomly given’ to such an extent that the phenomenon of citation would lose its role as a reliable measure of impact”
Article What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citi...
This is about ethical issues of citing the publications that were never read! An excellent responses were done!
http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/45295/is-it-unethical-to-cite-a-paper-or-book-that-you-have-never-looked-at
Sorry Prof Jacić , I have seen this unethical happen in the group I worked with in the Canadian University ...
They quote work say- free space optics with an Electrical paper , disconnection - 3rd party camera electronics !!! Totally bull$#^%$^ ...
Peter & David,
That was one of the points I was making about archaeology versus specific scientific research like the migrating habits of the bowfin fish (Amia calva). In my archaeological reports I have to cite 200-500 papers and reports in order to show the prehistory/history of the area, previous work in the area, methods and results, artifact identification and dating, etc. In order to show the migrating habits of Amia calva I likely would have to only cite 30 papers and reports and, since that would be one of my areas of expertise, I would be more familiar with each of those works.
Dear José Eduardo,
As common or less as to cite papers which are not relevant for a new research article or book.
Citation of citations often leads to loss of priority. E.,g., The Fast Fourier Transform and Tikhonov (Ridge) Regression in mathematics.
This almost happens in Computer Science as well. However, a paper should only be cited after it is completely read and understood by the author.
Without this in-depth reading, the author may arrive at wrong or misleading conclusions, which sometimes are missed by the eyes of reviewers.
Paper trail reveals references go unread by citing authors!
Many of the references cited in scientific papers have not been read by the authors citing them, according to an analysis of how errors in citations propagate through the literature.It isn't easy to establish directly — and truthfully — whether citations have been read...
https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v420/n6916/full/420594a.html
One aspect that I do not think anyone has mentioned is those people who inflate their research paper with too many citations as a way to increase the length of their paper or make it seem more scholarly. Citations should be balanced.
Dear James!
But many citations can show that one did not "reinvent a wheel".
Joseph,
I am sure that was jest. But, using many citations to establish an argument for or against something is different than superfluous citations. The number of citations that a researcher uses should be only enough to prove or refute a statement within the report/paper.
Well , I think citations tell that is work is refining and developing ... Or can demonstrate inter-disciplinary /collaborative effort (domain dependent )
I agree with Pierlorenzo Brignoli. reading the whole paper before citing (and in turn reading and understanding all the papers cited therein) is not always possible. I don't think if anyone will be doing this! Careful reading and understanding the portions of interest should make sense.
An interesting title could be accompanied of a bad or irrelevant content. It is safer to consult the content to do a good and appropriate citation.
If the abstract includes good information then there is no need to study the whole article only for its citing.
If the title includes good information then there is no need to study the abstract and the rest of the article only for its citing?
By the way, from a practical point of view you most often only cite the first authors, titles and journals. People rarely cite sentences and its corresponding page numbers from other publications, which is the best evidence that people indeed read the articles they are citing?
Honestly - isn't it impressing having beyond 100 citations at the end of a thesis and alike? And it is much easier to copy citations than fetching them from the original source :(
I personally consider this useless to nonsense - at least in my MINT area. May be different in the field of social/medical sciences. But there I expect references to sentences and/or chapters - not merely to a whole book or article.
Take these "mass-citers" for what they most likely are: pretenders.
Re. "much easier to copy citations than fetching them from the original source"
In cultural resources management (archaeology) many agencies to whom we submit reports, especially State Historic Preservation Officers, require us to prove that we know the archaeology and history of the specific areas about which our reports are written. Not only that, but we also have to include the geology, climate, flora and fauna, previous investigations in the area, previously recorded sites in the area, etc. The references pile up, both citing specific sentences/paragraphs and entire books/reports, until there can literally be hundreds of individual references. Since we have to tailor our reports for each project (e.g. write each chapter), there is no way that we could just copy citations. We must know the material that we write about.
Also, second-hand citations are problematic. There is no way to know if the author understood or cited the original work correctly. There was one famous quote of a quote in Louisiana archaeology that everybody used because the original work was so hard to find. When we finally found a copy, the quote of a quote was entirely wrong. The original document said the opposite of what the second-hand quote said.
JAG
Dear @James, it is widespread practice of copying citations nowadays, especially rellated to younger researchers, but not only them.
Ljubomir,
The same can be said about works that do not provide enough citations. I have seen many history books that do not have any citations of where they got their information.
However, part of university is supposed to be to teach how to research previous work in your field and then correctly and properly cite that work. It used to be that dissertation committees looked to see if the student provided sufficient and appropriate citations for their body of work. They needed to prove that they did their "due diligence" in order to earn their degree. Sadly, after getting that coveted degree, they often slip into bad usage.
JAG
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Journal Impact Factor