How does one ethically cite? Not talking about plagiarism here. How do I pick which papers to cite? Which ideas to reference? Which authors? How can I build an ethical citation practice? Integrate these ideas into the Literature reviews process.
Citations as Pilgrimage
I really like Cat Hicks' writing. https://www.drcathicks.com/post/citation-as-pilgrimage is no exception. "unlike AI, I can say names." Standing on the shoulders of giants. Giving credit instead of taking credit. But synthesis is worthy of taking credit for; so take credit for that. We publish because we owe others the results of our journey, for our minds are forged from the metal of ideas from those who came before us. None of us are fully our own people, our own mind.
Cite things that have been retracted (and explain why). Cite low-citation papers. Cite blog posts. Cite from outside your discipline. Cite minorities, disadvantaged, other cultures. Ask the people you're citing for suggestions on who else to cite. To some limited extent, get to know the people whose work you're citing. Learn their names, not just the titles of their papers.
The papers had been in the journals I was reading, the retractions came only later in small print and small blogs and via the people that my interrogator spoke with at conferences. It was not really a statement about my literature review, it was a statement about whether I had gone to the right parties at a conference, and I hadn't.
A citation is kind of like a chance meeting on a hiking trail. You may not be going the same direction, or to the same destination, but you give the best directions you can, letting the other know what they might find up ahead and trying not to steer them wrong. Offer encouragement. Be human. Citation is how you tell someone else "I see the work you did, and I value it."
Not cool to give credit, the isolation biased capitalist competition monster hisses.
"Reading as a form of communal social action."
She talks about this as a pilgrimage, and I understand that framing decision given her life experiences. Pilgrimage is about the journey and how it changes you, not just about getting to the destination. But citation is also an act, creating a connection between ideas and the people who wrote about them. Citation is how my society has decided to acknowledge the works of others, something that is oddly relegated to academia and probably not for much longer given the way capitalism is going. During the course of my studies here, I'm going to intentionally expose myself to the ideas of a lot of people, and they'll shape how I think about things inside and outside the discipline of library and information science and management. Those ideas won't be my education; I am more than the sum of the parts. But I am standing on the shoulders of giants, and citation are how I communicate that. Citation is an ethical responsibility (is it?). We are required to share what we learned on our journey with those who come after us (are we?).
We celebrate and build upon her insights by beginning each of the sub-parts of §1.3 with a quote from her book.
Glushko, R. J. (Ed.). (2013). "Chapter 1: Foundations for Organizing Systems" In The Discipline of Organizing. The MIT Press. https://berkeley.pressbooks.pub/tdo4p/chapter/the-discipline-of-organizing/
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