4 ms·
I despise this recent (yes, it is recent) assumption that an author is obligated to include everything related in any way in their bibliography. A bibliography
by xamuel 7y ago
I despise this recent (yes, it is recent) assumption that an author is obligated to include everything related in any way in their bibliography. A bibliography should be a list of papers that informed the paper in question; not every paper has to be a comprehensive survey (how exhausting that would be). If I win the lottery and find a counterexample to the Riemann Hypothesis by testing random numbers, I should be able to publish a paper with zero references, if I so desire; I should by no means be obligated to cite every paper ever written on the Riemann Hypothesis. This is just a lazy cop-out used by reviewers who want to reject papers but can't find any solid objections to the contents of those papers.
- danso 7y agoI agree that if we give the critic no benefit of the doubt, we might interpret her complaint as petty filibustering done in bad faith. But we only have that short quote from that critic. We don't know if she elaborated – or even if she were asked by the reporter to elaborate – on what she believes the significance of those not-included papers to be. If she is referring to major omissions, as in, the omitted papers are generally well-known and respected in the field, then her complaint is not a "lazy cop-out" nor a filibuster in bad faith, but a legitimate rebuttal.