Mod Idea: Simulating surfaces -> Borg Technology -> Twinkie Physics -> Worldviews

[Wanderer]

In New Scientist (UK edition from a week or two back - can't find an Online link to the story) there's an article about a study that showed that a large number of papers cited in scientific (although the same could apply to other disciplines) papers might not have been read by the person citing them...

They found that a certain paper had been cited 4300 times, with 196 of the citations spelling the paper wrong, putting the wrong year or the wrong page number. Despite there being a wide range of possible errors, there were only 45 different errors and the most popular mistake was made by 78 different people. This indicates people probably just copied the citation from someone else's paper without bothering to check its accuracy, which in turn indicates they probably didn't read the paper.

Which is worrying.

Possibly there's not as much going on as their findings suggest, but I seem to remember fleshing out the citations (with some popular books on the subject I hadn't read) in a university project biography to appear better read...