Acknowledging and building on the work of others

Abstract

Citing the work of others is part of the scholarly tradition and it is also an acknowledgment that what is known and claimed in an article is socially constituted. One might claim that an idea evolved while a person was alone, contemplating her work and its historical trajectories—eliminating all thoughts about others’ programs of work. However, how would she know the origin of her ideas? Undertaking a review of the scholarly works in relevant areas affords awareness of what is happening and connecting one’s work to the work of others in relevant fields. Doing this is helpful to authors of articles and also to readers who can then readily situate a publication into a context of other relevant work. I regard it as the authors’ responsibility to show an awareness of the field, identify key works, and to explain the connections of what is included in a given article and other identified works. In Cultural Studies of Science Education (CSSE) we do not encourage the common practice of including lists of citations in parentheses as markers of relevant work in a given area. Instead we ask authors to take the space to show how each cited work fits into the developing thesis of a paper. That is, explain how something specific from a cited source is relevant to the issues being discussed at the time. One test of whether or not a citation is substantive is the extent to which reasons for the citation are apparent to the reader. Of course, it might still be the case that the citation is inappropriate, however, by making the reasons visible, the reader has the chance to judge whether or not the arguments an author is making are warranted. An important set of connections that often need to be made explicit pertains to how this article connects to other publications from the authors of a paper and to publications of colleagues within the same research group. Self-citation should have a purpose that is clear to the reader. One important reason is to show connections to earlier work in a field and to contemporary work that is to be published elsewhere. In this way, authors can be explicit in showing how what is in a given paper is different than and builds on what has been written elsewhere. This seems highly prudent when a paper is one of many from a given database.