3 ms·

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 What I'm saying here is that the "academic code of conduct" is a bit outdated.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.