> > >On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 2:17 PM, Christopher Jefferson ><[email protected]> wrote: > >> If it is acceptable to ignore the citing requirement, > >I have tried to see if I could come up with a scenario where a >respectable scientist would not cite sources that he used for his >article - especially when the sources ask to be cited. I have failed >to come up with a single scenario. > >Can you elaborate on the situations in which you believe academia >would applaud _not_ citing your sources?
Yes I certainly can. Every paper I write critically depends on the use of modern computers, and modern computers depend on transistors. But nobody would suggest that in a paper on algorithms that I should cite the original paper about transistors [1]. That is a trivial example. But it does illustrate the key point, which is that citations are not a complete record of every piece of work that contributed to the paper. They are selective, and they have to be selective: otherwise a large percentage of all papers ever published would need to be cited in my next paper. Of course many examples are equally clear in the other direction. If I spotted some error in the transistor paper and published a correction, obviously I should cite it. Or if I was writing an article about when and where to cite or not cite things then obviously it would make complete sense to cite the Transistor paper, so here it is: [1] The Theory of p-n Junctions in Semiconductors and p-n Junction Transistors, Shockley, 1949
