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I am astounded that people would question citing an arxiv paper. If you get an idea from somewhere else, you cite it. This doesn't even have to do with the arch

I am astounded that people would question citing an arxiv paper. If you get an idea from somewhere else, you cite it. This doesn't even have to do with the archive. I have on multiple occasions read papers where the author wrote a proof and then cited "private communications" with another mathematician as the source. In a business where ideas are ideas, you should always cite the source. Anything else is extremely dishonest. edit: To be clear, I am personally entirely okay with not citing papers containing ideas you were unaware of during your own formulation (though I think if you become aware of it, you should probably point out that it was previously independently discovered by someone else). Your paper may still have merit even if it's idea isn't "new" (especially if the first paper is shit as is often the case). edit2: I personally don't see much wrong with Yoav Goldberg's blog post linked in this blog post. It's refreshing to hear his honest opinions out loud. As a graduate student I always lost a little sanity each time I read a paper with "great ideas", but terrible follow-through (i.e. explanation and proof of those ideas). I personally think that clarity of exposition is at least as (if not more) important than the novelty of an idea. However, you should still cite the sources of your ideas. Feel free to point out the source's flaws, but cite them nonetheless. (Hopefully no more edits...)

hyperion2010 9y ago
In the academy it would be legitimate grounds for an academic misconduct case.
- teniutza 9y ago
  When I started my PhD I was even told not to cite book, regardless of their footprint in the field. They are/were regarded as some sort of "common knowledge". Many ideas come from such works, but one cannot cite them and must, instead, cite a previous work (which surely got their (base)ideas from the same books...). What I'm saying here is that the "academic code of conduct" is a bit outdated.
  - CogitoCogito 9y ago
    I think this is alright as well. Many things do become "common knowledge". The book probably didn't come up with the original idea/argument anyway. Of course tangential to the citing of novel ideas is the citing of material that helps explain your work. I think it's certainly a good idea to cite a source of common knowledge if that source does an especially good job of presenting that knowledge. As with all things, this is a judgment call. Just try to be honest...
  - semi-extrinsic 9y ago
    Again, it depends on the purpose of the citation. I believe no-one would have a problem with e.g. "To solve this discretized Poisson equation we use the BiCGStab method \cite{vanLeersPaperAboutBiCGStab}, which is an iterative Krylov method; see \cite{SaadsTextbook} for a general introduction."
    - convolvatron 9y ago
      exactly. all this talk of reputation, authority, credit, etc. the bibliography is an important part of your work. its there to help an interested reader understand your work more fully by placing it in context, providing more access to a more exhaustive discussion of the finer points, and to assist in their studies of related topics. at some level thats what it has to be about.
petters 9y ago
Yes. You always cite your source. Period. Sometimes you also cite sources to help the reader. E.g., I have cited Wikipedia articles for basic concepts in peer-reviewed articles.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- teniutza 9y ago
  Five years ago (during my PhD) I would not have been "allowed" to cite a paper which has not been peer-reviewed and published in the proceedings of a recognised conference. Papers on arXiv where specifically black-listed. Mentioning Wikipedia (even off the record, in personal meetings) would have been the start of fast road to the bottom.
  - im3w1l 9y ago
    This dissonance seems to come from the fact that citing has two purposes 1. Assigning credit to where you heard about something. 2. Giving a claim (the best possible, and sufficiently strong) support. From the credit perspective you should cite wherever you heard something, even if it was alleyway graffiti. From the support perspective, you should take the idea you read on the wall look it up to see if someone credible has said the same thing, and then cite them, and if not maybe not mention it all.
    - sddfd 9y ago
      When publishing a paper/book with a certain publisher there is an interaction between the prestige of the publisher and the prestige of the author: An author publishing with prestigious publishers is considered prestigous; a publisher that publishes prestigous authors is considered prestigous. Since publishers are commercial entities, their prestige is an asset they want to protect. So there are other incentives at play when it comes why citing ArXiv is currently not en vogue. I always find it refreshing to see how pre-print driven reserach communities like physics operate in comparison.
CogitoCogito 9y ago
It just occurred to me that by quickly posting early in this thread and then continuing to develop my argument in further edits, I'm essentially guilty of flag-planting. The irony of doing so in this discussion (albeit subconsciously) compels me to point out my own hypocrisy. :) I guess it's a good reminder that many of these habits aren't purposeful. Though I'd hope that people would stop and think a bit more than I just did before uploading papers to the archive (or publishing elsewhere). But I guess impatience afflicts us all... (This time not an edit!)
remus 9y ago
I don't think the issue is the act of citation itself, more that the citation is meant to provide a level of assurance that the idea you're citing is true. If you cite a paper in Science that carries with it a knowledge that some clever people have looked over it and can't see any obvious issues with the work. If you cite a napkin sketch that doesn't carry that weight and pushes the onus on to the reader to verify the cited claim themselves. In a paper with 100 citations that's not really a practical position to be in. Im not saying it's necessarily a good system (plenty of shit makes it in to journals after all), but I can understand why an author would be hesitant to cite lots of non-peer reviewed sources in a paper of theirs. Having said that, I guess that's really just a sign that you're on shakey ground if you're reliant on dodgy sources!
- CogitoCogito 9y ago
  > If you cite a paper in Science that carries with it a knowledge that some clever people have looked over it and can't see any obvious issues with the work. If you cite a napkin sketch that doesn't carry that weight and pushes the onus on to the reader to verify the cited claim themselves. I think no matter the source, you (as the author) have the final responsibility of citing correct work. You can (reasonably) choose to only cite nature because it is "safer" choice, but you can also cite other sources though you should of course take care to vet that source well yourself. As you point out, a lot of shit makes it into journals and in fact many journals are themselves shit (and outright frauds) so adding arxiv as a source doesn't really fundamentally change anything. As a side note, I believe that many papers cite way _too_ many papers. Unless you use or expand upon a paper's work, I think you shouldn't be citing it (except possibly as general background knowledge). I just can't understand how you can write a paper that's explicitly doing so with 100 previous works (a book sure, but not a paper). Then again, my citation philosophy goes against many others (including my former advisor). Many think you should cite basically anything tangentially related (especially the works of the academic king makers). For me this is no longer important since I no longer am an academic researcher. I have the freedom to pontificate on the subject without any worries of having a career. :)
  - thirdstation 9y ago
jhbadger 9y ago
At least in biology, a lot of journals have been cracking down on "personal/private communication" citations lately -- the point of a citation isn't just to give credit, but to tell the reader where to find the info, and chatting with your friend isn't a realistic option for that. If it is unpublished, and is important enough to be cited, then you should make the friend a co-author and include the info in your paper. That is a different case than an arxiv paper, though.
- CogitoCogito 9y ago
  Of course the info needs to be included in the paper if it cannot be found elsewhere. I didn't want to imply otherwise. Whether the friend needs to be a co-author is of course up to them and certainly depends on the size of the contribution, but that is beside the point of both citing the source of a certain idea and making sure the reader is able to verify its validity. In fact, I personally lean towards often including arguments even if they can be found in sources you cite. If you can provide a much clearer argument than the source (and it doesn't detract from your own work), you should include the improved one in your work. If it is a minor detail that is both worth citing as well as easy to include, then I think you should include it to avoid requiring the reader to hop around from paper to paper to get an understanding of your work. You should make your work as accessible to the reader as possible.
- ajarmst 9y ago
  I'd argue that the latter purpose---allowing the reader to recover the original sources and arguments to your thinking---is more important than the 'giving credit' one. If a conversation or email exchange with someone was indeed critical to the development of your ideas, then you offer them co-authorship, not a "citation' to something not only unpublished but undocumented. If it was only incidental to the thinking, then no citation is necessary.
  - ajarmst 9y ago
    I will note that many a graduate supervisor or lab administrator has been offered (or simply taken) co-authorship for a far more scant contribution than a key conversation.
amelius 9y ago
> In a business where ideas are ideas, you should always cite the source. Why should this not apply everywhere else? E.g., Stripe citing Paypal for their idea, Google citing Altavista, and Facebook citing Myspace.
- CogitoCogito 9y ago
  I'm not saying that it necessarily shouldn't apply everywhere else, but it's certainly a fact that in those industries the business is _not_ the idea (at least at that grand scale). The business is the timing and follow-through. Abstract ideas are a dime a dozen in most industries. The idea of providing an improved search engine, or simplifying financial transactions is relatively trivial (for each of those companies there were certainly hundreds of failed ones that all had the same grand idea). (This triviality is in contrast to the specific method--for example, PageRank--that was used in the case of Google.) As a side note, why do you believe that it doesn't apply outside those industries? I'm sure if you asked Brin and Page, they would say they were inspired by (the limitations of) previous search engines. Ditto for Stripe and Paypal and Facebook and Myspace. Academic ideas are (hopefully) much more specialized than these broad ideas. In business they are more comparable to patents and for patents prior art is of course extremely important (enough so to legally invalidate your legal claim to your idea!). In contrast to patents, however, there aren't strong legal mechanisms to enforce priority of ideas and that's why being honest and open about it (community policing of these ideals) are especially important. If academics were to entirely stop caring about citing their sources, academic research would probably totally cease to function.
matwood 9y ago
I agree, and am surprised if something should be cited is even a question. IMO, not citing is dishonest and/or shows laziness in the research.

hyperion2010 9y ago

In the academy it would be legitimate grounds for an academic misconduct case.

teniutza 9y ago
When I started my PhD I was even told not to cite book, regardless of their footprint in the field. They are/were regarded as some sort of "common knowledge". Many ideas come from such works, but one cannot cite them and must, instead, cite a previous work (which surely got their (base)ideas from the same books...). What I'm saying here is that the "academic code of conduct" is a bit outdated.
- CogitoCogito 9y ago
  I think this is alright as well. Many things do become "common knowledge". The book probably didn't come up with the original idea/argument anyway. Of course tangential to the citing of novel ideas is the citing of material that helps explain your work. I think it's certainly a good idea to cite a source of common knowledge if that source does an especially good job of presenting that knowledge. As with all things, this is a judgment call. Just try to be honest...
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  Again, it depends on the purpose of the citation. I believe no-one would have a problem with e.g. "To solve this discretized Poisson equation we use the BiCGStab method \cite{vanLeersPaperAboutBiCGStab}, which is an iterative Krylov method; see \cite{SaadsTextbook} for a general introduction."
  - convolvatron 9y ago
    exactly. all this talk of reputation, authority, credit, etc. the bibliography is an important part of your work. its there to help an interested reader understand your work more fully by placing it in context, providing more access to a more exhaustive discussion of the finer points, and to assist in their studies of related topics. at some level thats what it has to be about.

petters 9y ago

Yes. You always cite your source. Period. Sometimes you also cite sources to help the reader. E.g., I have cited Wikipedia articles for basic concepts in peer-reviewed articles.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
teniutza 9y ago
Five years ago (during my PhD) I would not have been "allowed" to cite a paper which has not been peer-reviewed and published in the proceedings of a recognised conference. Papers on arXiv where specifically black-listed. Mentioning Wikipedia (even off the record, in personal meetings) would have been the start of fast road to the bottom.
- im3w1l 9y ago
  This dissonance seems to come from the fact that citing has two purposes 1. Assigning credit to where you heard about something. 2. Giving a claim (the best possible, and sufficiently strong) support. From the credit perspective you should cite wherever you heard something, even if it was alleyway graffiti. From the support perspective, you should take the idea you read on the wall look it up to see if someone credible has said the same thing, and then cite them, and if not maybe not mention it all.
  - sddfd 9y ago
    When publishing a paper/book with a certain publisher there is an interaction between the prestige of the publisher and the prestige of the author: An author publishing with prestigious publishers is considered prestigous; a publisher that publishes prestigous authors is considered prestigous. Since publishers are commercial entities, their prestige is an asset they want to protect. So there are other incentives at play when it comes why citing ArXiv is currently not en vogue. I always find it refreshing to see how pre-print driven reserach communities like physics operate in comparison.

CogitoCogito 9y ago

It just occurred to me that by quickly posting early in this thread and then continuing to develop my argument in further edits, I'm essentially guilty of flag-planting. The irony of doing so in this discussion (albeit subconsciously) compels me to point out my own hypocrisy. :) I guess it's a good reminder that many of these habits aren't purposeful. Though I'd hope that people would stop and think a bit more than I just did before uploading papers to the archive (or publishing elsewhere). But I guess impatience afflicts us all... (This time not an edit!)

remus 9y ago

I don't think the issue is the act of citation itself, more that the citation is meant to provide a level of assurance that the idea you're citing is true. If you cite a paper in Science that carries with it a knowledge that some clever people have looked over it and can't see any obvious issues with the work. If you cite a napkin sketch that doesn't carry that weight and pushes the onus on to the reader to verify the cited claim themselves. In a paper with 100 citations that's not really a practical position to be in. Im not saying it's necessarily a good system (plenty of shit makes it in to journals after all), but I can understand why an author would be hesitant to cite lots of non-peer reviewed sources in a paper of theirs. Having said that, I guess that's really just a sign that you're on shakey ground if you're reliant on dodgy sources!

CogitoCogito 9y ago
> If you cite a paper in Science that carries with it a knowledge that some clever people have looked over it and can't see any obvious issues with the work. If you cite a napkin sketch that doesn't carry that weight and pushes the onus on to the reader to verify the cited claim themselves. I think no matter the source, you (as the author) have the final responsibility of citing correct work. You can (reasonably) choose to only cite nature because it is "safer" choice, but you can also cite other sources though you should of course take care to vet that source well yourself. As you point out, a lot of shit makes it into journals and in fact many journals are themselves shit (and outright frauds) so adding arxiv as a source doesn't really fundamentally change anything. As a side note, I believe that many papers cite way _too_ many papers. Unless you use or expand upon a paper's work, I think you shouldn't be citing it (except possibly as general background knowledge). I just can't understand how you can write a paper that's explicitly doing so with 100 previous works (a book sure, but not a paper). Then again, my citation philosophy goes against many others (including my former advisor). Many think you should cite basically anything tangentially related (especially the works of the academic king makers). For me this is no longer important since I no longer am an academic researcher. I have the freedom to pontificate on the subject without any worries of having a career. :)
- thirdstation 9y ago

jhbadger 9y ago

At least in biology, a lot of journals have been cracking down on "personal/private communication" citations lately -- the point of a citation isn't just to give credit, but to tell the reader where to find the info, and chatting with your friend isn't a realistic option for that. If it is unpublished, and is important enough to be cited, then you should make the friend a co-author and include the info in your paper. That is a different case than an arxiv paper, though.

CogitoCogito 9y ago
Of course the info needs to be included in the paper if it cannot be found elsewhere. I didn't want to imply otherwise. Whether the friend needs to be a co-author is of course up to them and certainly depends on the size of the contribution, but that is beside the point of both citing the source of a certain idea and making sure the reader is able to verify its validity. In fact, I personally lean towards often including arguments even if they can be found in sources you cite. If you can provide a much clearer argument than the source (and it doesn't detract from your own work), you should include the improved one in your work. If it is a minor detail that is both worth citing as well as easy to include, then I think you should include it to avoid requiring the reader to hop around from paper to paper to get an understanding of your work. You should make your work as accessible to the reader as possible.
ajarmst 9y ago
I'd argue that the latter purpose---allowing the reader to recover the original sources and arguments to your thinking---is more important than the 'giving credit' one. If a conversation or email exchange with someone was indeed critical to the development of your ideas, then you offer them co-authorship, not a "citation' to something not only unpublished but undocumented. If it was only incidental to the thinking, then no citation is necessary.
- ajarmst 9y ago
  I will note that many a graduate supervisor or lab administrator has been offered (or simply taken) co-authorship for a far more scant contribution than a key conversation.

amelius 9y ago

> In a business where ideas are ideas, you should always cite the source. Why should this not apply everywhere else? E.g., Stripe citing Paypal for their idea, Google citing Altavista, and Facebook citing Myspace.

CogitoCogito 9y ago
I'm not saying that it necessarily shouldn't apply everywhere else, but it's certainly a fact that in those industries the business is _not_ the idea (at least at that grand scale). The business is the timing and follow-through. Abstract ideas are a dime a dozen in most industries. The idea of providing an improved search engine, or simplifying financial transactions is relatively trivial (for each of those companies there were certainly hundreds of failed ones that all had the same grand idea). (This triviality is in contrast to the specific method--for example, PageRank--that was used in the case of Google.) As a side note, why do you believe that it doesn't apply outside those industries? I'm sure if you asked Brin and Page, they would say they were inspired by (the limitations of) previous search engines. Ditto for Stripe and Paypal and Facebook and Myspace. Academic ideas are (hopefully) much more specialized than these broad ideas. In business they are more comparable to patents and for patents prior art is of course extremely important (enough so to legally invalidate your legal claim to your idea!). In contrast to patents, however, there aren't strong legal mechanisms to enforce priority of ideas and that's why being honest and open about it (community policing of these ideals) are especially important. If academics were to entirely stop caring about citing their sources, academic research would probably totally cease to function.

matwood 9y ago

I agree, and am surprised if something should be cited is even a question. IMO, not citing is dishonest and/or shows laziness in the research.