249
votes
Is it acceptable to use non-English references in a computer science paper?
Having many non-English references is absolutely no valid reason to reject a computer science paper.
If a reader wants to follow up on the references, they can learn some German, find a translator, ...
- 45.3k
208
votes
Accepted
My paper is being cited in vaccine misinformation. What do I do?
I'm going to disagree with the folks saying to just ignore the anti-vaxxers.
These people are not cranks, in the sense of the proposed duplicate question. A crank in that sense is an intellectually ...
- 190k
184
votes
Is it okay to mention we're citing an article only because a reviewer told us to?
As it turns out, not every comment or suggestion forwarded by a reviewer needs to be necessarily accommodated in your manuscript. Hence, as you seem to have a convincing argument against citing the ...
- 1,495
173
votes
Accepted
Why is it acceptable to cite unpublished works?
You seem to be interpreting citations as a way of proving something by appeal to authority. That is not what citations are. A citation is a way of giving appropriate credit to the originator of an ...
- 36.7k
171
votes
Accepted
How do I handle a colleague's gender change when citing their paper?
Is it an option to ask M Smith if she would be ok if the first citation were to read as the following?
Smith, M. (published G.) 2014, recent advances in foo, international journal of foo sciences ...
159
votes
How do I handle a colleague's gender change when citing their paper?
One of the primary goals of citing literature is to help others find that literature. Citing a paper differently than it exists in a journal is antithetical to this goal. Unless Smith changes George ...
- 2,313
156
votes
Is it okay to mention we're citing an article only because a reviewer told us to?
No, it's completely inappropriate to cite something while making snarky remarks about how you don't think you should. There is no upside whatsoever: it makes you look petty and obnoxious, and it looks ...
- 34k
137
votes
Will minor mistakes in my bachelor's thesis harm my future career as a researcher?
I have a perception that academicians are perfectionists and might persecute mistakes like this even when done unintentionally.
I am pleased to report that your perception is wrong! Academics are ...
- 109k
137
votes
Accepted
Citing paywalled articles accessed via illegal web sharing
Nobody will know how you have gained access to the article. Feel free to cite articles found via whatever sources.
It might not even be illegal to download content from the website; check your local ...
- 8,963
129
votes
Should I do anything if I am cited for something that wasn't in my paper?
Since you never mention their technique, it is quite likely it's a "typo" (they accidentally cited a different paper than they meant, which, at least, in my field happens more than 0% of the time), or ...
- 32.7k
112
votes
Accepted
How should I respond to a reviewer's complaint about self-citation?
The answers here of Solar Mike and corey979 are correct, but let me point out two additional issues.
First, it might be that without your citations you could validly be accused of self plagiarism. ...
- 385k
112
votes
Quoting a book whose title contains a racial slur
It is what it is. You aren't responsible for that. I suggest that you cite it as you would any other work. Presumably you aren't endorsing racist views.
You aren't being "kind" by hiding ...
- 385k
111
votes
Accepted
How can I improve my paper with mostly original contents and only two references?
Citations aren't just about avoiding plagiarism. They are more about embedding your work into a scientific context. Every paper should explain in an introduction section
why this work is relevant, ...
- 1,161
109
votes
Access to scientific articles that cite mine after leaving academia
You can write an e-mail to the authors and ask for a copy of their published paper. Almost everyone will be happy to send you one.
Before doing that, check if the paper is already published on their ...
- 47.2k
105
votes
When someone cites one of your papers, is it a good idea to send an email to the authors to show appreciation?
Straight answer: NO it's not a good idea
Citing someone is (and should) be neither a favor nor a gesture of politeness. So there's no point to send a thank you email. Thanking someone for a citation ...
- 11.7k
102
votes
Accepted
Is it acceptable to cite people without putting the appropriate diacritics in their names?
As somebody with accents in the name who does not put them on scientific papers, I would recommend going with the way they put their names on the papers.
Certain people are very particular about ...
- 1,636
102
votes
Is it acceptable to cite people without putting the appropriate diacritics in their names?
I'm not sure how far ethics comes into this, but omitting accents is, effectively, a misspelling of the name. If you need to cite something by Schön, and you instead write "Schon", I'd regard that as ...
- 1,937
101
votes
How do I handle a colleague's gender change when citing their paper?
This is really making a mountain out of a mole hill. Do the thing that will make the author happy. Even hyper famous papers have all sorts of oddities and mistakes in them; it is likely that nobody is ...
- 6,936
101
votes
Is it acceptable to use non-English references in a computer science paper?
I tend to agree with @Arno's answer that citing non-English sources is fine. But that is actually beside the point, since as far as OP's situation is concerned, I think he has much less of a dilemma ...
- 197k
99
votes
Quoting a book whose title contains a racial slur
An academic paper published in 2017 had to deal with this issue because it examined this exact work. "The Struggle of Others: Pierre Vallières, Quebecois Settler Nationalism, and the N-Word Today&...
- 641
85
votes
Accepted
Is pasting an excerpt from Wikipedia in a paper without reference plagiarism?
Copyright for a written work expires some years after the author's death; the length of time under copyright law varies from country to country. Wikipedia and other sites use a variety of licencing ...
- 2,363
84
votes
Got accused of plagiarism due to a reference lost during copying my own writing
While you are technically guilty of plagiarism for forgetting the reference, you are not guilty of self-plagiarism—the work you have plagiarized is not published anywhere, nor is there an expectation ...
- 174k
82
votes
Accepted
Should I cite the paper from which I got the research question in my own paper?
Yes, I think you should. Questions are at least as difficult to develop as answers, I would not privilege one over the other.
You need not cite it as explicitly as "We got our research question ...
- 127k
81
votes
Accepted
How do you cite a Github repository?
GitHub has now added built-in citation support (https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1420122675813441540). Simply add a CITATION.cff file (
https://citation-file-format.github.io/) to your repo and ...
- 934
80
votes
Accepted
How old can references or sources in a thesis be?
References can be as old as they need to be to cover the material. I had some that were more than 30 years old. But if all of your references are "old," people are going to want to know why.
You ...
- 27.6k
79
votes
Accepted
How do I use lemmas that are probably already proven, but including the proof myself is quicker than looking up a source?
You do need to make some effort to find in the literature a result you think is known, but after that what you propose is common and I feel is fine. I do it sometimes. In such a situation, I tend to ...
- 9,041
77
votes
What are the downsides of using arXiv references instead of conference/journal references for the same paper?
Using arXiv instead of a conference / journal reference has an obvious disadvantage: readers won't know that the paper eventually passed peer review and was published. This is important context, ...
- 134k
75
votes
Accepted
Using et al. for a last / senior author rather than for a first author
I think in an informal medium like a blog post, you could convey that author D is the main character in the “story” you are trying to tell while still maintaining proper citation standards by saying ...
- 1,038
75
votes
Should I cite an article that I can't find?
I would definitely try contacting your librarian at your university library. University libraries collect physical copies of papers and they might have this one. Librarians are also a lot more versed ...
- 671
75
votes
Accepted
I might be rediscovering someone else's result. What should I do?
You do have means of verifying it - for example write to the author and ask him for more information or a copy of his thesis, contact any coauthors on the paper you have read, find someone who speaks ...
- 2,547
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible