Meaningful Citations

Good Points to Follow

Mary-Claire van Leunen explains the art of writing meaningful citations (and other issues) in her excellent book A Handbook for Scholars, Oxford University Press, 1992, A Handbook for Scholars - Victoria library Catalogue.

She points out that citations have a number of functions:

• Citations opens the door to further information and independent judgement.
• Citations keep you honest.
• Citations means you don't have to introduce old notions, just include your citations that point you to where they are introduced or described.
• Citation can be used to strengthen your argument.
• Citation is courtesy of scholars.

She also discusses what makes a meaningful citation, some highlights:

• Avoid brackets without context.
• Let the information and emotion hidden between citations out into the open. Honest. Instead of "Furbot [21] identifies ..." try giving some context "Furbot, writing in the VUW Journal of Phrenology [21], described for the first time the computer scientist convulation ...".
• Avoid things like "it has been said", "see [x] for a further discussion".

Links

• Rules for Scholars a more detailed list of rules and reasons for them.