Reference

Reference

The concept "reference" or "referent" has the deepest and most general meaning in semantics: what a word or a symbol refer to. Lyons (1977) is a standard work within semantics, which discusses the meaning of reference (pp. 177-197).

A basic problem in defining reference is related to its subjectivity or objectivity. Is the reference of a given word what a given speaker believes it is? Or is the reference of a given word given in a more objective sense?

Sinha (1988, p. 58) defines: "The reference of a term, for an interpreter on a given occasion of discourse, is that which is identified by the term by virtue of the fulfillment of the conditions on representation".

In Library and Information Science (LIS) has the concept of reference been used in classification and indexing, by, for example, Langridge (1976, p. 35). In indexing a cross-reference means a reference at one place in a work to information at another place in the same work. There are two main kinds of cross-references: "See" and "see also". The "see" reference indicates the place where the information is to be found. The "see also" reference" indicates a place where additional information may be found.

The specific use of the term is as a reference to an information source, a citation or a bibliographic reference. Because information searching via lists of references in documents (or hypertext links) is a dominating search strategy is it important for LIS to uncover what is cited, what is not cited, and what re the motives for citing? This is a field of importance for large areas of bibliometrics and citation indexing.

Garfield (1965, p.85), lists 15 reasons why authors refer to other documents:

"Paying homage to pioneers.
Giving credit for related work (homage to peers)
Identifying methodology, equipment, etc.
Providing background reading
Correcting one's own work
Correcting the work of others
Criticizing previous work
Substantiating claims
Alerting to forthcoming work
Providing leads to poorly disseminated, poorly indexed, or uncited work.
Authenticating data and classes of facts - physical constants, etc.
Identifying original publications in which an idea or concept was discussed.
Identifying original publications or other work describing an eponymic concept or term...
Disclaiming work or ideas of others (negative claims).
Disputing priority claims of others (negative homage). "

Seglen (1996, p. 29) lists a range of problems concerning the selection of references: "

References are selected because of their usefulness for the author, which is something different from their quality
Only a small fraction of all used material is cited
General knowledge is not cited
Knowledge is often cited from secondary sources
Documents supporting an authors arguments are cited more often than other documents
Flattering (citing editors, potential referees and other authorities)
Show-of (citing hot new “in”-articles)
Reference copying (references provided by other authors)
Conventions. In biochemistry, for example, methods are cited but not reagents
Self citations
Citing colleagues (often reflecting informal transfer of information)." (Seglen, 1996, p. 29, translated from Norwegian).

Modern norms for referencing may be studied historically. Mustelin (1988) demonstrates how writers before 1500s were extremely careless in their references and often copied from other sources without acknowledgement. From the last part of 1500s authors of scientific works try to provide stronger evidential weight to their writings. This endeavour expressed itself in, among other ways, the annotations and references that authors added to their expositions in order to make them look more trustworthy. Philologists and text-publishers were the first professionals to plead for instances and references. Later on followed historians and other groups. The use of references in scientific work is one among other ways in which sources criticism is being expressed, why the study of references should be associated with the study of scientific methods, in particular how scientists and scholars selects and documents their information sources.

Bazerman (1988, chapter 6, pp. 164-167) is an empirical investigation of the way the use of references has developed in spectropic articles in the journal "Physical Review" in the period 1893-1980.

Literature:

Bazerman (1988). Shaping written knowledge: the genre and activity of the experimental article in science. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press. http://wac.colostate.edu/books/bazerman_shaping/.

Brooks, T. A. (1986). Private Acts and Public Motivations: An Investigation of Citer Motivations. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 36, 223-229.

Brooks, T. A. (1987). Evidence of Complex Citer Motivations. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 37, 34-36.

Cronin, B. (1984). The Citation Process: The Role and Significance of Citations in Scientific Communication. London: Taylor Graham.

Garfield, G. (1965). Can citation indexing be automated? In Statistical Association Methods for Mechanized Documentation. Symposium Proceedings, Washington, 1964. (National Bureau of Standards Miscellaneous. Publication. 269, ed by Mary E. Stevens, et al., p. 189-192). Also available on the Internet: http://165.123.33.33/eugene_garfield/essays/V1p084y1962-73.pdf

Garfield, G. (1996) When to cite. Library Quarterly, 66(4), 449-458. Also available on the Internet: http://165.123.33.33/eugene_garfield/papers/libquart66(4)p449y1996.pdf

Harter, S. P.; Nisonger, T. E. & Weng, A. (1993). Semantic Relationships Between Cited and Citing Articles in Library and Information Science Journals. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 44, 543-552.

Langridge, D. W. (1976). Classification and Indexing in the Humanities. London: Butterworths.

Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics 1-2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

MacRoberts, M. H. & MacRoberts, B. R. (1989). Problems of citation analysis: a critical review. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 40(5), 342-349.

Mustelin, O. (1988). Källhänvisningar och fotnoter i svenskspräkiga Åbodissertationer under 1700-talet. In Kolding Nielsen, E. et al. (ed.), Bøger, Biblioteker, Mennesker: Et Nordisk Festskrift Tilegnet Torben Nielsen Universitetsbiblioteket i København. København, DK: Det kgl. Bibliotek i samarbejde med Det danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab. (Pp. 105-126).

Seglen, P. O. (1996). Bruk av siteringer og tidsskriftimpaktfaktor til forskningsevaluering. Biblioteksarbejde, #. 48, 27-34. Click for full_text PDF

Sinha, C. (1988). Language and Representation. A Socio-naturalistic Approach to Human Development. London: Harvester.

Smith, L. (1981). Citation Analysis. Library Trends, 30, 83-106.