Literature practices: processes leading up to a citation
| Pages | 62-77 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2018-0047 |
| Published date | 14 January 2019 |
| Date | 14 January 2019 |
| Author | Nikolai Klitzing,Rink Hoekstra,Jan-Willem Strijbos |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Literature practices: processes
leading up to a citation
Nikolai Klitzing, Rink Hoekstra and Jan-Willem Strijbos
University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
Abstract
Purpose –Literature practices represent the process leading up to the citation of a source, and consist of the
selection, reading and citing of sources. The purpose of this paper is to explore possible factors that might influence
researchers during this process and discover possible consequences of researchers’citation behaviours.
Design/methodology/approach –In this exploratory study,various factorswhich could influenceliterature
practiceswere explored via a questionnaire amongst 112 researchers. Participants were firstauthors of articles
published in 2016 in one of five different journals within the disciplines of experimental psychology, educational
sciencesand socialpsychology. Academicpositionsof the participantsranged from PhDstudent to full professor.
Findings –Frequencies and percentages showed that researchers seemed to be influenced in their literature
practices by various factors, such as editors suggesting articles and motivation to cite. Additionally, a high
percentage of researchers reported taking shortcuts when citing articles (e.g. using secondary citations and
reading selectively). Logistic regression did not reveal a clear relationship between academic work experience
and research practices.
Practical implications –Seeing that researchers seem to be influenced by a variety of factors in their
literature practices, the scientific community might benefit from better citation practices and guidelines in
order to provide more structure to the process of literature practices.
Originality/value –This paper provides first insights into researchers’literature practices. Possible reasons
for problems with citation accuracy and replicating research findings are highlighted. Opportunities for
further research on the topic of citation behaviours are presented.
Keywords Social sciences, Citation, Norms, Academic shortcuts, Literature practices, Secondary citation
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The social sciences are currently criticised for their limited success in reproducing the results
of studies, which ultimately has led to the coining of the term “replication crisis”.Thistopic
has sparked a variety of discussions, blog posts and journal publications starting with
Ioannidis (2005) reminding the research community about the importance of reproducible
findings. Later, the Open Science Framework conducted a large-scale replication attempt of
multiple major psychology studies (Open Science Collaboration, 2015), the result of which
indicated that a large quantity of the original results could not be replicated.
The replication crisis presents a threat and an opportunity at the same time. While it can
possibly lower the trust in and within the scientific community, it also offers a point of
reflection and chance for improvement of the scientific mechanisms at hand. This ultimately
might help form a more trustworthy and better functioning community. Since science is a
communal effort, trust in each other’s abilities is essential to its proper functioning. To
assure good quality, there are mechanisms in place to maintain the high standards that we
have set for ourselves, such as peer review and specifying in our papers how we obtained
our information. How we cite and acknowledge each other specifically, however, has to our
knowledge not been investigated in the social sciences so far, though there do exist theories
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 75 No. 1, 2019
pp. 62-77
Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-03-2018-0047
Received 26 March 2018
Revised 22 August 2018
Accepted 3 September 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
© Nikolai Klitzing, Rink Hoekstra and Jan-Willem Strijbos. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This
articleispublishedundertheCreativeCommonsAttribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce,
distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial
purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence
may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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regarding why we cite each other (see Tahamtan and Bornmann, 2018; Bornmann and
Daniel, 2008 for a more extensive look on this topic). Tahamtan and Bornmann named three
major citation theories: normative citation theory (Merton, 1973; as cited in Tahamtan and
Bornmann (2018)), social-constructivist theory (e.g. Gilbert, 1977) and a more recent theory
by Nicolaisen (2007). Normative citation theory is centred around the assumption that
researchers mainly cite to give and receive credit, while in social-constructivist theory
citations are seen more as a tool to convince readers of the point the author is trying to make
according to Gilbert (1977). Nicolaisen’s theory relies on the handicap principle (Zahavi and
Zahavi, 1999) and roughly states that researchers cite honestly to a certain degree as not
doing so would pose a threat to their own credibility if it would be detected.
Generally speaking, the main way that we as researchers acknowledge each other’sworkand
the community at large is through citing each other’s work if we believe the normative account of
citation. The path leading up to a citation, however, includes various steps such as selection of
sources to cite, reading them and finally citing them. All of the steps are also prone to human
error. For example, researchers have problems with interpreting commonly used statistical
findings (e.g. Hoekstra et al., 2014), and make mistakes when citing a source (e.g. Evans et al.,
1990). It is therefore also possible that they misinterpret results of another source. So far, citations
and the processes leading up to them, as well as the influence of the citation process on theory
building and the replicability of studies, seem to have been of little concern to the community, if
the amount of literature on the topic is any indication. This problem has been acknowledged in
the medical sciences, where issues with accuracy of citations are quite prevalent (e.g. Lukic et al.,
2004) and might consequently lead to serious distortions (e.g. Engber, 2017; Rekdal, 2014).
Yet, accuracy of citations and the possible negative consequences of inaccuracies are relevant to
not only the medical but to all sciences. However, the social sciences might be especially sensitive
as they rely heavily on theoretical frameworks and have had difficulty reproducing some results
when testing those theories (e.g. Open Science Collaboration, 2015).
The focus of this exploratory study will be on identifying factors that can influence
researchers’practices when creating citations in the social sciences. Furthermore, whether
and how researchers use shortcuts (e.g. secondary citations) while dealing with the works of
colleagues will be investigated. Finally, it will be examined whether academic work
experience influences researchers’practices. These issues will be investigated by exploring
the steps of selection, reading and citing of sources, all of which can be summed up under
the term literature practices.
1.1 Literature practices
The process leading up to a citation requires considerable time and effort. First, one has to
search for sources and decide whether they might be relevant to one’s work. Second, the source
of possible relevance has to be read in order to determine whether it could be used and in order
to fully understand its content. Third, after reading its content the source can, for a variety of
reasons, be cited in the context of one’s own current manuscript. This entire process is referred
to as “literature practices”throughout the remainder of this paper and describes the overall
process of dealing with colleagues’work in the context of writing a scientific manuscript.
1.2 Factors that influence researchers’literature practices
1.2.1 Norms and motivation to cite. In general, guidelineson citing are quite scarce.The APA
manual provides advice on the formatting and some general statements about when one
should cite and with what purpose (American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 169).
However, the main responsibility for decidingwhen and why a citation is needed is up to the
individual researcher and the research community as a collective. Nevertheless, some studies
on researchers’citation behaviours have appeared. Most notably the review studies by
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