3 ms·

Uh, isn't citing papers that have nothing to do with your paper unethical or plagiarism and could be seen as padding your paper? I don't think citing sources th

• michaelbuckbee 15y ago
  This was my first thought as well, but from the context I think that he was citing papers that were related (even if indirectly) to his work.
• JoachimSchipper 15y ago
  Not really. Plagiarism means something else, and padding your paper or citing some random guy doesn't help you in any way. (A lot of work is done to shorten papers to get them under journals' page limit, and many have at least a full page of citations.) And he only did it once; if nothing else, he can plausibly say "I had these papers on my desk, had a deadline, and wanted to make sure I wasn't accidentally using their work without giving credit". [I'm doing a PhD in crypto after my MSc in math, my girlfriend is doing her PhD in math, lots of friends are mathematicians.]
• gnosis 15y ago
  It's more like anti-plagiarism: giving credit where none is due.