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> It was a “phantom reference” that had been created merely to illustrate Elsevier’s desired reference format. I think that explains a lot. Some authors cut an

> It was a “phantom reference” that had been created merely to illustrate Elsevier’s desired reference format. I think that explains a lot. Some authors cut and paste the reference into their document to have an example, and then forget to remove it before they submit the paper. Then the reviewers don't notice or do not remark it in their review report, and it get published. I did a very similar error myself when I was including the price of a book I cited as part of its title, and this passed through review without notice. This paper was part of my doctoral dissertation, and while none of the opponents made a remark, the institute leader that otherwise was in a completely different field and probably read only the citations did notice. During the "questions from the audience" session, he asked why I did that, which caused a bit of amusement.

sago 8y ago
There should be a distinct difference then between whether the paper is only referenced in the bibliography, or whether it is also cited. I wonder how many of the papers actually cite the article? An article that is only referenced is pretty meaningless. Like a function that is implemented but never called. Or should be. Perhaps the problem is the way indexers assume references equal citations. To continue yesterday's interesting discussion of Latex, references should not appear unless they are cited. I used to use a huge master bibliography for everything, and assumed that Bib/Latex would sort out the things I actually cited.
teachrdan 8y ago
That was probably more of a good-natured dig at the reviewers (his peers) for failing to read the paper as closely as he had!
abapologist 8y ago
“Because, ma’am, I wanted to know who had read with sufficient attention that they would catch something so minor in the footnotes. Then I would know who had invested their time and attention in my paper.”

sago 8y ago

There should be a distinct difference then between whether the paper is only referenced in the bibliography, or whether it is also cited. I wonder how many of the papers actually cite the article? An article that is only referenced is pretty meaningless. Like a function that is implemented but never called. Or should be. Perhaps the problem is the way indexers assume references equal citations. To continue yesterday's interesting discussion of Latex, references should not appear unless they are cited. I used to use a huge master bibliography for everything, and assumed that Bib/Latex would sort out the things I actually cited.

teachrdan 8y ago

That was probably more of a good-natured dig at the reviewers (his peers) for failing to read the paper as closely as he had!

abapologist 8y ago

“Because, ma’am, I wanted to know who had read with sufficient attention that they would catch something so minor in the footnotes. Then I would know who had invested their time and attention in my paper.”