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The number of references is staggering, especially considering the length of the paper. Is it a sign of deep research, or can it be a red flag, or it's not unus

by pestaa 4y ago

The number of references is staggering, especially considering the length of the paper. Is it a sign of deep research, or can it be a red flag, or it's not unusual?

mattkrause 4y ago
224 is a lot, and some of them seem a little gratuitous: "For example, robots can outperform humans in manual labor (Frey & Osborne, 2017; Murphy, 2017)" However, I wouldn't read a lot into it. In general, I think we'd be better off if people cited more widely instead of just choosing the "classic" reference from a famous group (that may not even be the first/best work on the topic).
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
  It’s not really much different than doing something like citing Stack Overflow or a book in your code comments.
  - mattkrause 4y ago
    Sure. I was just surprised because my fields cite a bit more sparingly (and journals often limit you to ~50-75 per paper). I use them for specific results or original/controversial ideas, but I wouldn't bother for something fairly obvious like "robots can sometimes outperform people." It seems like including an SO link for a bog standard for-loop in your code.
jrumbut 4y ago
I would say that, when combined with other signs in the writing, it points to the authors being quite meticulous and thorough in their research. It also seems like they are combining several studies with different theories and supplementary data so it's bound to lead to a long citation list.
hwbehrens 4y ago
I suspect that it will vary by field -- perhaps this is normal for psychology, but looking at recent accepted papers from the same journal, they mostly had 60-70 citations. Such a dramatic deviation from the "norms" of the venue is at least a yellow flag, but I would hesitate to say that it's necessarily a red one. In CS research, this many references in a peer-reviewed work would be a red flag for me, however. If it were an NSF grant proposal, then it would actually be fairly few -- for whatever reason grant proposals might have 300+. So, the context is very important when evaluating citation prevalence.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
  From my days as an undergrad in psychology, I do recall there being a trend of citing even the smallest thing, for the sake of internal consistency within the overall body of knowledge.
9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
The APA is a very prolific organization. It is common for highly researched topics to have a strong breadth and depth to the citations. edit: See https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/appropriate-citation https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/...
- pydry 4y ago
  Somehow they still managed to repeat a common historical misconception in first paragraph: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-rea... I suspect it's less about the deep research and more about the tribe.
  - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
    “It is true that there are some “technophobes” who—like the Luddites of the Industrial Revolution—explicitly dislike and fear robots (Dekker et al., 2017; McClure, 2018)“ Is that what you are referring to? They don’t appear to be citing Conniff anywhere at all. Dekker, F., Salomons, A., & van der Waal, J. (2017). Fear of robots at work: The role of economic self-interest. Socio-economic Review, 15, 539–562. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwx005 https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwx005 McClure, P. K. (2018). “You’re fired,” says the robot: The rise of automation in the workplace, technophobes, and fears of unemployment. Social Science Computer Review, 36(2), 139–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894 https://doi.org/10.1177/0894 439317698637 edit: Quoting Conniff: ”They [the Luddites] confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.”” Granted, I haven’t dug into Conniff’s source material, but I do see parallels to the OP article’s argument of there being insecurities about jobs, vis-a-vis the Luddites requiring membership in an apprenticeship guild and parallels to the article’s argument of insecurity leading to maladaptive behavior, vis-a-vis the Luddites characterizations of manufacturers as fraudulent and deceitful and the subsequent property damage.

by pestaa 4y ago

The number of references is staggering, especially considering the length of the paper. Is it a sign of deep research, or can it be a red flag, or it's not unusual?

mattkrause 4y ago

224 is a lot, and some of them seem a little gratuitous: "For example, robots can outperform humans in manual labor (Frey & Osborne, 2017; Murphy, 2017)" However, I wouldn't read a lot into it. In general, I think we'd be better off if people cited more widely instead of just choosing the "classic" reference from a famous group (that may not even be the first/best work on the topic).

9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
It’s not really much different than doing something like citing Stack Overflow or a book in your code comments.
- mattkrause 4y ago
  Sure. I was just surprised because my fields cite a bit more sparingly (and journals often limit you to ~50-75 per paper). I use them for specific results or original/controversial ideas, but I wouldn't bother for something fairly obvious like "robots can sometimes outperform people." It seems like including an SO link for a bog standard for-loop in your code.

jrumbut 4y ago

I would say that, when combined with other signs in the writing, it points to the authors being quite meticulous and thorough in their research. It also seems like they are combining several studies with different theories and supplementary data so it's bound to lead to a long citation list.

hwbehrens 4y ago

I suspect that it will vary by field -- perhaps this is normal for psychology, but looking at recent accepted papers from the same journal, they mostly had 60-70 citations. Such a dramatic deviation from the "norms" of the venue is at least a yellow flag, but I would hesitate to say that it's necessarily a red one. In CS research, this many references in a peer-reviewed work would be a red flag for me, however. If it were an NSF grant proposal, then it would actually be fairly few -- for whatever reason grant proposals might have 300+. So, the context is very important when evaluating citation prevalence.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
From my days as an undergrad in psychology, I do recall there being a trend of citing even the smallest thing, for the sake of internal consistency within the overall body of knowledge.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago

The APA is a very prolific organization. It is common for highly researched topics to have a strong breadth and depth to the citations. edit: See https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/appropriate-citation https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/...

pydry 4y ago
Somehow they still managed to repeat a common historical misconception in first paragraph: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-rea... I suspect it's less about the deep research and more about the tribe.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
  “It is true that there are some “technophobes” who—like the Luddites of the Industrial Revolution—explicitly dislike and fear robots (Dekker et al., 2017; McClure, 2018)“ Is that what you are referring to? They don’t appear to be citing Conniff anywhere at all. Dekker, F., Salomons, A., & van der Waal, J. (2017). Fear of robots at work: The role of economic self-interest. Socio-economic Review, 15, 539–562. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwx005 https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwx005 McClure, P. K. (2018). “You’re fired,” says the robot: The rise of automation in the workplace, technophobes, and fears of unemployment. Social Science Computer Review, 36(2), 139–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894 https://doi.org/10.1177/0894 439317698637 edit: Quoting Conniff: ”They [the Luddites] confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.”” Granted, I haven’t dug into Conniff’s source material, but I do see parallels to the OP article’s argument of there being insecurities about jobs, vis-a-vis the Luddites requiring membership in an apprenticeship guild and parallels to the article’s argument of insecurity leading to maladaptive behavior, vis-a-vis the Luddites characterizations of manufacturers as fraudulent and deceitful and the subsequent property damage.