From: Vincent Campbell (VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 17 Dec 2002 - 16:28:48 GMT
<Let me just add a bit: Legal citation is fundamentally different
from
> scientific citation because of its adversarial nature. Scientists don't
> get paid to attack each other's work. They make progress when they can
> build on it. As a result they don't need to scrutinize every word as
> closely.>
>
What not even getting the names of papers right?
Having just marked a gazillion social science essays from first year
undergrads where the reference was, well... interesting, I think there's a
simple explanation for this. Writing up the bibiliography is the most
tedious of all parts of the research process, and therefore engages the
least amount of concentration of the researcher. Still, as I tell my
students incorrect referencing and pretending to have read something when
you'r really getting it from some other person's description/summary is the
easy route to misunderstanding at the least and plagiarism at the worst.
Vincent
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