“Academic urban legends” by Ole Rekdal is an excellent prerequisite to writing anything that requires research or incorporates external sources. He identifies 3 ways academics can improperly cite information that are sloppy, misleading, and sometimes lead to outright infringement. The caveats introduced deter against pitfalls like plagiarism and the circulation of false information, which is especially vital for those seeking an active role in academia. Encouraging close scrutinization of sources can improve comprehension of, and thus better representation of sources, help students think deeper and develop more complex ideas about their topics and ultimately produce quality pieces of research.
The first citation error is no citation. Undocumented claims are frustrating for readers who want further verification or more information on a subject. The more serious academic offense, however, is plagiarism, i.e. the most heinous writing sin a teacher preaches against as soon as a child begins to copy thoughts onto paper. In my public education experience, teachers don’t grade on content quality so much as grammar and originality. One can drown a paper in too many ideas, in the loftiest, most mismatched metaphors that purple prose can vomit or write the driest, blandest bit of rubbish a mind can muster while still being called sentient. But if that rubbish is your rubbish, A for effort! I guess one man’s trash can be another man’s treasure, but this method of grading neglects instilling habits of quality control. Despite their incessant preaching, teachers don’t even look closely for plagiarism; a commonly known loophole is to sandwich a copied block of text between a formic (but original!) introduction and conclusion. Kids are thus allowed to develop sloppy writing habits. They don’t take time to find sources of merit, to understand, or accurately accredit them.
Second error: citing a secondary as a primary source. This gives undue credit to the secondary source and makes the claim appear deceivingly robust. As Rekdal shows, such careless research can lead to the propagation of rumors that are protected by the name of popular academic journals (645). He focuses on a rumor about how spinach was mistakenly labeled as a good source of iron because of a misplaced decimal point. Rekdal first read this in the Journal of Internal Medicine in an article by K. Sune Larsson but discovered that Larsson is a secondary source, relying on a British Medical Journal article by Terence Hamblin.
A slightly more accurate citation would include both secondary and primary courses, but even so, this doesn’t guarantee that a certain claim is true. After checking the primary source, as a responsible researcher should, Rekdal found that Hamblin actually gives no reference for his claim that “…the original workers had put the decimal point in the wrong place and made a tenfold overestimate of its value…[p. 1671]” (644). However, the secondary sources Rekdal found all use Hamblin, showing how one unverified claim can turn into many and, by nature of multiplicity, become common knowledge.
In this way, multiple identical rumors are self reinforcing; consider how a rumor, launched into circulation, infects a careless academic (who doesn’t verify the source) who then recirculates it in a contaminated paper. It’s possible for this contagion to reach the first writer, who, thinking this new source is credible and actually did their proper research, believes their unsupported claim even more. Rekdal notes this is a possible cause of Arnold Bender’s increased certainty of the spinach rumor’s truth (646; 648). He describes how this occurs:
“When academics plagiarize from each other, whether it is an idea or a reference, a single (and highly erroneous, as in this case) interpretation will appear as two or more mutually independent statements, reinforcing the reliability or truth value of each other in a way that is entirely undeserved” (648).
Thus, false verification can lead to widely, yet falsely, held beliefs that subsequent research is based upon. It goes to show that we should never take the status quo for fact; researchers ought to follow their claims down to the roots rather than skimming off the top of the literature pool. The digital age has given us incredible tools for verifying references and debunking rumors that have floated around for years. The sad irony is that it, “…has also created opportunities for new and remarkably efficient academic shortcuts…”(652) such as “…what Haralambos Gavras [2002] has called the ‘Lazy author syndrome’: throwing a few keywords into a database to come up with an impressive list of references…” (352). Responsible authors question and shrewdly select their sources. Quality of judgement reflects quality of mind. They are, according to Rekdal, the unsung stars of research:
“Perhaps the greatest heroes are, however, invisible in this landscape: those who read about the decimal point error in one or more of these sources, but found out that they could not use it because the references and the documentation were not solid enough. Individuals with such attitudes are among the most important propellers of scientific development and accumulative knowledge…” (651).
Judiciousness is something to be valued, as it ensures academic research meets the standards we expect it to. Thus, new pieces of research can be a building block for a field rather than regressions. It’s sad though, that systemic norms disincentivize academic heroes’ efforts:
“…many of them nonetheless end up as losers in systems where quantity is more important that quality, and where academic production is reduced to units being counted, rather than something worth taken into account” (651).
Even if such academics cannot be individually praised for their innumerable decisions to include or not include certain sources, there is a saving grace. Their work that is recognized will be appreciated for the right reasons. By contrast, there are those researchers who skim sources and cut out snippets that favor their own preconceptions or political opinions. The original meaning becomes consequently distorted. Whether they deliberately intend to relay unreliable information or simply don’t take the time to understand what they’re reading, such recklessness can lead to widespread falsities. For instance, let’s recall the 2009 Climategate scandal when over 1000 emails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit in the University of East Anglia were stolen. The hacker made public some excerpts that, out of context and read by non-scientists, seemed to show the scientific community colluding to fabricate the man-made global warming theory. Here’s one example from skeptical science.com discussing the scandal:
“The most quoted email is from Phil Jones discussing paleo-data used to reconstruct past temperatures (emphasis mine):
‘I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.’
‘Mike’s Nature trick’ refers to a technique (aka “trick of the trade”) used in a paper published in Nature by lead author Michael Mann (Mann 1998). The “trick” is the technique of plotting recent instrumental data along with the reconstructed data. This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales” (Cook).
Cook also mentions that “decline” refers to declining confidence in the ability of tree rings to show climate change rather than a decline in temperatures, as is usually assumed. Granted, the hacker remains unknown and could be just that—a hack trying to falsify man-made global warming, regardless of the science behind, it to rouse up controversy or score some political points. But it’s easy to see how even honest academics can make similar mistakes if they neglect to understand their sources.
So the point is, develop good research habits before college when people actually read your work, before you need it for a resume. Failure to do so bespeaks laziness and a lack of passion, in which case why write at all? One should speak only when one has something pertinent to say. The alternative is an “avalanche of low-quality research” that comes from the desire to be cited and pad one’s curriculum vitae (651) and shoddy research methods. It all starts with selecting accurate sources; I would rather read a few trusted papers than 10,000 half verified pieces of regurgitated nonsense. Please authors, have a care for the quality of ideas you release into the world. Respect your readers! Give due credit to your references, if not from a feeling of responsibility then from pride in documenting the history of work in your field as proof of its importance and pride in acknowledging your contribution to its progression.
–TorDeaTonitrae
Works Cited
Cook, James. “What do the ‘Climategate’ hacked CRU emails tell us?”. 12 May 2014. Web. skepticalscience.com. 1 Sept. 2014.
Rekdal, Ole Bjørn. “Academic urban legends.” Social Studies of Science. 44.4 (2014): 638-654. SAGE. Web. 31 Aug. 2014.
TorDeaTonitrae 