Difference Between Citations And Quotes

The concern is so acute that the political scientist Jacqueline Stevens has even suggested that research and even emails discussing biological differences across populations should be banned, and that the United States “should issue a regulation prohibiting its staff or grantees…from publishing in any form—including internal documents and citations to other studies—claims about genetics associated with variables of race, ethnicity, nationality, or any other category of population that is observed or imagined as heritable unless statistically significant disparities between groups exist and description of these will yield clear benefits for public health, as deemed by a standing committee to which these claims must be submitted and authorized.

Among the conventional adab anthologies, we encounter a somewhat different organization of the traditional material in the Kitâb Adab ad- dunyâ wa-d-dîn of al-Mâwardî (d. 450/1058).84 The five large chapters of the work deal with 1. the excellence of the intellect and intelligence and the blameworthiness of instinctive desire and blind prejudice (hawâ); 2. the âdâb of knowledge; 3. the âdâb of religion (dealing mainly with the negative aspects of the material world); 4. the âdâb of this world; and 5. the âdâb of the soul. As the plural âdâb indicates, the various ways in which intellectual, religious, practical/material, and spiritual/ethical behavior is to be practised are illustrated by preferably brief and aphoristic statements in prose and, quite often, in verse. As is to be expected, the chapter on knowledge shows no systematic arrangement. It starts out with strong expressions of praise for knowledge and the appropriate Qur- ânic citations and statements by the Prophet and early Muslim authorities. Evidence is presented for the superiority of knowledge over ignorance. The impossibility of attaining complete knowledge is explained, and the need to acquire knowledge of all kinds wherever possible is stressed. The relationship between knowledge and material possessions is explored in the usual manner. It is recommended that the process of studying begin at an early age. Knowledge is dif- cult to acquire. Again, the prevalence of ignorance is discussed. The objectionable character of using knowledge for ulterior purposes comes in for customary mention. There are sayings explaining the best methods of study and instruction, the qualities students ought to possess, the need for long and strenuous study, and the drawbacks of forgetfulness. Then, we read remarks about handwriting, about the usually bad handwriting of scholars, and about their constantly being engaged in writing. Remarks on the qualifi cations of students, the hadîth that “good questions are one half of knowledge,” and sayings about the character qualities of scholars complete the part of the work devoted to knowledge. Its predominantly secular outlook is indicated by the fact that knowledge here continues to precede the discussion of religion and ethics. The basic role conceded to the intellect with respect to both intellectual/educational and religious/ ethical activity is formally acknowledged by placing the chapter on it at the beginning, as was also the case in the work of al-Marzubânî.

Let’s say someone writes an academic paper quoting fifty people who have worked on the subject and provided background materials for his study; assume, for the sake of simplicity, that all fifty are of equal merit. Another researcher working on the exact same subject will randomly cite three of those fifty in his bibliography. Merton showed that many academics cite references without having read the original work; rather, they’ll read a paper and draw their own citations from among its sources. So a third researcher reading the second article selects three of the previously referenced authors for his citations. These three authors will receive cumulatively more and more attention as their names become associated more tightly with the subject at hand. The difference between the winning three and the other members of the original cohort is mostly luck: they were initially chosen not for their greater skill, but simply for the way their names appeared in the prior bibliography. Thanks to their reputations, these successful academics will go on writing papers and their work will be easily accepted for publication. Academic success is partly (but significantly) a lottery.fn2

What is the right balance? It’s certainly conceivable that the promise of hitting a financial jackpot is so overwhelming that it more than makes up for the inefficiencies introduced by intellectual property law and closed R&D labs. That has generally been the guiding assumption for most modern discussions of innovation’s roots, an assumption largely based on the free market’s track record for innovation during that period. Because capitalist economies proved to be more innovative than socialist and communist economies, the story went, the deliberate inefficiencies of the market-based approach must have benefits that exceed their costs. But, as we have seen, this is a false comparison. The test is not how the market fares against command economies. The real test is how it fares against the fourth quadrant. As the private corporation evolved over the past two centuries, a mirror image of it grew in parallel in the public sector: the modern research university. Most academic research today is fourth-quadrant in its approach: new ideas are published with the deliberate goal of allowing other participants to refine and build upon them, with no restrictions on their circulation beyond proper acknowledgment of their origin. It is not pure anarchy, to be sure. You can’t simply steal a colleague’s idea without proper citation, but there is a fundamental difference between suing for patent infringement and asking for a footnote.

As you climb the academic ladder, the pressure to specialize only increases. The academic world is ruled by the law of publish or perish. If you want a job, you must publish in peer-reviewed journals. But journals are divided by discipline, and publishing an article on virus mutations in a biology journal demands following different conventions from publishing an article on the politics of pandemics in a history journal. There are different jargons, different citation rules, and different expectations. Historians should have a deep understanding of culture and know how to read and interpret historical documents. Biologists should have a deep understanding of evolution and know how to read and interpret DNA molecules. Things that fall in between categories—like the interplay between human political ideologies and virus evolution—are often left unaddressed.[20]