BoyWiki:Agora/4 May 2016

A note on "citations" and "references"

"Citations" are really all about avoiding plagiarism. Had I "stolen" Enochian's words, it would have been plagiarism. But by giving a citation I am crediting Enochian for the ideas formulated in the manner which he formulated them. Whether his explanation is true or false has nothing to do with the citing--it is just a matter of "giving credit where credit is due".

Here's another citation:

• "The Earth is flat."

(Reference: A 2012 address made by the President of the Flat Earth Society, etc. etc..)

Is the Earth really flat just because I gave a "correct citation"?

The second reason citations are given is to allow the reader to himself check whatever supporting evidence may exist (from scientific studies, etc.) for some statement made. But if some "study" is faulty, then that study may support a statement which may be a completely false statement.

Then again, I can make a statement that is absolutely true, without giving a citation to some "scientific study," etc. to try to "prove" anything. Here is such a statement:

• "Two plus two is not always four".

That is an absolutely true statement. Now, if a reader is smart, he can figure out why that statement is true. If the reader is not smart, he may have problems with accepting the validity of that statement. As a courtesy (not as a necessity) I may include a reference to something that explains the nature of what occurs when combining cups of different types of fluids, or when combining cups of finely grained substances with more coarsely grained substances, but I don't have to give such a "reference" or "citation".

Example of how "2+2 does not always equal 4":

• "Two cups of water combined with two cups of alcohol does not give four cups of liquid. Two cups of marbles combined with two cups of sand does not give four cups of solid material," etc. etc.

My statement is just as true, with or without giving any references. It is up to the reader to decide whether to accept my statement as "fact" or not. Yes, giving "references" or "citations" is nice, but not necessary for my claims (however outlandish they may seem to an uninformed person) to be absolutely true!

References may appear to make something seem more "authoritative" but, in fact, academics play all kinds of games with citations. For example, they often cite other articles or studies which they have never even read, they quote "statements" which do not' appear in the cited source, they may add dozens of citations just to improve the "visibility" or "rating" of their article relative to other articles in scientific journals, they include citations to articles in other non-peer-reviewed journals (which makes the reliability of the information more questionable), etc. etc.

I have an article from a respected journal which did a study on citations in journals, and which goes into these problems with citations in great detail. I have not included a reference to the article here. Do you have to have the reference to that article in order to believe what I said above? No. You could just accept my authority when I make such statements. Or you can reject my statements, just as you could reject any statements made in any journal article that I cited to support my statements here!

(Most of this is from a Talk page, but I believe a record of this should exist elsewhere, as well.)

(Also, I would like to expand on this later, but as editing Agora pages without javascript enabled in one's browser is problematic, I will have to leave this entry as it is, and incomplete.)

::Now, I didn't have to give a reference here--it is just a courtesy to the reader, in case he wants to see the context of my words. Without the reference, he can just assume that, yes, indeed, some conversation took place somewhere on a Talk page which involved something that Enochian said. Giving the reference does not make my statements more "truthful" or "accurate" etc. User4 (talk) 01:27, 4 May 2016 (UTC)