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It's not okay to not cite something, if it's relevant, regardless of where it's published. But people who feel strongly about open access are free to publish th

• dredmorbius 11y ago
  While there are merits to that, there are two roles to a citation. One is to reference clearly foundational work. Here, you've got a limited set of choices, but also, directly consequent, the total number of works is small. The key here is to ensure that they're made publicly available -- SciLib, LibGen, etc. I've found myself frustrated by researchers who don't cite key foundational works -- case in point is Fischer-Tropsch based fuel synthesis from electricity. I'd run across several studies from the US Naval Research Lab none of which cited research prior to the mid 1990s. Turns out the field is actually over 50 years old, with early work at Brookhaven National Labs -- not some sketchy fly-by-night. The lack of citations here was egregious. The other purpose, and far more common, is simply to show documentation of established claims or facts in a field. Here, virtually any credible source will do, and it's for this type of citation that open-access pubs can and should be strongly favoured.