The Wisdom of Citing Scientists

[David Wojick]

Dear Ronald,

This is certainly true up to a point, although just what reasoning from the 
cited article is being incorporated by reference is typically not stated. 
It may be something small or tangential. In fact saying what it is might 
prove difficult in some cases, making the citation vague in terms of what 
it actually conveys. This is an interesting aspect of the reasoning in its 
own right; what and how well a citation conveys.

But in any case that is not the role I am referring to. Each sentence in an 
article plays a specific role in the reasoning, in addition to saying what 
it says. It does this by being related to certain other sentences in 
specific ways. For example, by presenting an example of a concept 
introduced by another sentence, as this sentence does. This relational 
structure is what my issue trees map. Citations share this structural role 
based on the sentences they accompany. Thus different citations may play 
different reasoning roles in an article.

My best,

David Wojick

At 09:47 AM 8/11/2013, you wrote:
>Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe): 
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>The role played by citations in reasoning is simple: it is a short-hand. 
>Instead of repeating the reasoning of a fellow scientist (and here it is 
>claimed that this reasoning is correct; otherwise a simple citation is not 
>enough) one just refers the reader to the original source (to verify for 
>him/her self).
>
>Friendly greetings,
>
>Ronald
>
>Ronald Rousseau •
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>----------
>Van: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics 
>[SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] namens David Wojick [dwojick at CRAIGELLACHIE.US]
>Verzonden: zondag 11 augustus 2013 15:40
>Aan: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
>Onderwerp: Re: [SIGMETRICS] The Wisdom of Citing Scientists
>
>Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe): 
>http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>The concept of the "reason" for a citaion is ambiguous because there are 
>different kinds of reasons, some of which have been alluded to in our 
>discussion. There are psychological reasons such as motivation, 
>sociological reasons such as convention, strategic reasons, etc.
>
>Being a logician my interest is simply the role that the citation plays in 
>the reasoning presented in the article. Science is after all a system of 
>reasoning, often linked by citations. Every article is itself a complex 
>structure of reasoning. I just wrote about this at
><http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/07/10/the-issue-tree-structure-of-expressed-thought/>http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/07/10/the-issue-tree-structure-of-expressed-thought/.
>
>For example a citation may be part of the introductory historical 
>narrative or it may be offering evidence supporting a strong claim, and 
>this is a significant difference. We might call these the epistemic 
>reasons for the citations. What role does the citation play in the reasoning?
>
>The point is that there are different kinds of reasons, which need to be 
>sorted out in any scientific inquiry into the reasons for citations.
>
>David Wojick
>
>>
>>
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