Referencing Ruins Writing

An old essay I dug up. Kind of fun…

Referencing has a number of useful applications. Referencing helps prevent plagiarism, allows for students to show off their research, and has an inherently persuasive value. In post-graduate reports, citation counts can also be used to judge a papers value, and I suspect in undergraduate, the opposite occurs, when papers are judged on their contained references.

Indeed, the arguments for referencing are somewhat Kuhnian: by constantly acknowledging previous research, referencing is building on the knowledge of others. But there are problems with this paradigm. Firstly, referencing does not allow researchers to acknowledge or repeat the mistakes made previously, as the cited experiments are not repeated. Secondly, it seems undergraduates can become stuck in a paradigm where referencing takes precedence over original thought. So instead of a Kuhnian framework that will evolve as the mistakes build up, perhaps with a moment of Popper’s genius, we’re left a very boring, very tedious method of essay construction, which ruins the joy of writing an original essay, and fails to instil any useful scientific discipline. Lastly, the lack of referencing throughout this essay is not an attempt at academic humour: rather, it is a reflection upon the worrying lack of research into this subject. It begs the question: are we following a paradigm simply for the sake of it?

Firstly, what do I mean when I use the term referencing? I’m talking about all the varying methods of acknowledging sources in an essay. Footnotes or bracketing, alphabetical or chronological, if it acknowledges the use of a separate work in an original written piece, it’s counted as a reference. I’ll probably also use the term ‘citation’ from time to time, with exactly the same meaning as reference. So, what are the useful applications of referencing?

This is a poorly referenced work. Although hopefully, through the depth of thought presented, it will become clear that this is due more to the fact that there is no research available on this topic, rather than my simply being too lazy to find it. Due to constraints of time and word limit, I felt it would have been a strong case of overkill should I launch into my own evidentiary research. As such, much of this essay relies on anecdotal evidence. I trust readers will be understanding, especially once we’ve considered together the weakness’ in the philosophy of referencing.

1. Preventing Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the scorn of the academic world, and one of the easiest ways around plagiarising someone else’s work is to reference it. Referencing allows writers to borrow the thoughts and ideas of others and incorporate them into their own work, while still properly acknowledging ownership of the original idea. By allowing writers such a tool, plagiarism can be effectively halted: there is little excuse to steal the ideas of someone else and claim them as your own when you can just as easily reference them. This is probably the most important reason for referencing – without referencing to prevent plagiarism, the world of academic writing would be horribly ineffective and awfully argumentative!

2. Demonstrating Research
Another reason for allowing referencing is that it can demonstrate a writer’s thorough research. Where a writer has considerable amount of references, it is clear that they have spent some time reading and searching on the subject, and acquired quite a considerable knowledge of the topic. However, what this does not demonstrate is the amount of critical thought put into the interpretation of the references or the construction of the essays argument. But more on that later.

3. The Persuasive Value of Referencing
Essays are written to persuade readers of a particular argument, and the use of references can have a uniquely persuasive value. By citing particular papers, well held in the scientific community as ‘correct’ or ‘right’, your own paper can become more persuasive. “In choosing one collection of papers to cite…[the author] is implicitly displaying his allegiance to a particular section of the scientific community”1. Because of the use of such ‘persuasive’
references, that community is then more likely to consider the findings of the paper seriously. In undergraduate, this amounts to referencing writers mentioned by your lecturer, in the knowledge that the lecturer already agrees with them, and will thus be more likely to agree with you.

4. Citation Counts
Many argue that the number of citations a paper receives is a guide to its quality.2 Certainly, the academic value of post-graduate pieces is often judged on a count of citations it has received. The more times it has been cited, the greater it’s academic merit. Indeed, as discussed above, I suspect the opposite occurs at undergraduate level – papers are judged on the perceived merit of the included references, rather than the actual argument they support or dismiss. For instance, I would suggest than an undergraduate essay with many references would almost always do better than an essay with few references. Indeed, this has a lot to do with the methods of allocating marks for correct referencing etc., but this is exactly the point. Essay marking is forced to lean toward reference counts, rather than depth of argument or reasoning. While I acknowledge there is little more than anecdotal evidence for such a contention, this is exactly my point: at the most little, but more probably no research has been done into the methodologies or effects of referencing. But again, more on this later!

There do seem to be veritable, logical reasons for referencing, but what of a philosophical framework that supports it? And it would seem logical to draw on Kuhn for an explanation: Referencing builds on the work of others, slowly advancing science. But there is a problem here: this is not quite Kuhn! For Kuhn requires that mistakes can be identified and as they too gradually build up, the old paradigm will eventually fail and new one becomes necessary.
But I worry that the current methods of referencing do not support such a contention: I would argue that referencing fails to see any past mistakes and instead marches on relentlessly even when a paradigm is failing. This would occur particularly at undergraduate level, where referencing is often quite superficial and the full meaning of a referenced sentence can be mistaken without an understanding of the entire related article. Instead, undergraduates can fall into a trap of simply repeating, verbatim, the findings – mistakes and all – of past authors. No mistakes or kinks in the paradigm build up, and as such the paradigm becomes further and further entrenched, particularly as these same undergraduates graduate, no doubt some into teaching positions!

So while the current referencing systems are somewhat Kuhnian in that they build on the past work of others, referencing fails in that it can too easily ignore and even disguise the mounting errors of a failing paradigm.

The demands of undergrad referencing also leave little room for original thought. And it’s probably fair enough: there is little room in undergraduate essays, rarely totalling more than 2000 words, for much in depth discussion at all. But as discussed, referencing is so highly held that the marking system is skewed toward rewarding essays with the most references. So much so, that the question asked of correctors is not: “does this argument make sense?”, or “is this a well thought out piece?”, but rather “does this piece contain enough references?” But why, in the clutter of an undergrad essay, is referencing given such a preference over original thought?

Quite simply, this cannot be good for science. It’s a simple fact that science needs original scholars; people who can think outside the square of the current paradigm, to reach a new level of understanding: We need Popper’s genius’. But our current system of referencing does little to support this. Instead, anxious students clambering for the best marks put original thought on the back burner. Entire essays are constructed around what everyone else has already said on the subject at hand, and students lose interest in critically analysing the problems with the opinions they deal with. They’d rather borrow someone else’s critique: Students are indoctrinated to distrust their own individual opinions. By the time students have graduated, they are merely automatons repeating the learned opinions of their tutors, their lecturers and their text books, who themselves are indoctrinated within the same repetitive system. Rendered incapable of any truly critical and analytical thought, the majority are left mostly unprepared to contribute anything new to the theories of their chosen field. And science is worse off because of it.

A disturbing product of this lack of critical thought is the misunderstanding that references make you right. My own rudimentary research suggests that many students, when compiling an essay, establish an opinion and then find papers and quotes to support it. They don’t stop to think if their opinion is right, nor do they consider the ‘correctness’ of the papers they find to support it. Indeed, they are right regardless, as they can’t be shown wrong once they’ve got their little army of supporting quotes. This is a serious problem: academic research fails when it is not conducted honestly, with the intent of finding the best available truth. And this is what students can do: referencing allows them to subvert their research to support their preformed, preferred opinion.

And this is where we have to acknowledge one of the biggest problems with referencing: it does not make you any more, nor any less, ‘right’. Simply, because someone agrees with you does not make your opinion either correct or incorrect. Literally, all it means is that someone else agrees – and they might be just as wrong as you: no matter how well respected they are. And so, without critically analysing the referenced material, referencing can in fact become the weakest link in an essay. It’s damningly obvious: referencing without critical analysis is extremely bad for learning, extremely bad for science, and extremely bad for writing.

But no-one seems to notice – let alone care – about this sorry state of affairs. There is literally no accessible research supporting or discouraging referencing; into why we should reference; or even why we do reference. It seems instead to have just happened: academic writing just needs referencing. And it is worrying: we don’t have any researched or critiqued reasons for supporting referencing, we just do it. It’s both unscientific and unacademic: one of the most important systems used in communicating our knowledge is undiscussed. And as we’ve seen, referencing is not problem free: it is clearly in need of some full and frank discussion.

It’s clear there are a lot of questions left unanswered regarding our methodology and philosophy of referencing. And I’m not purporting to have the answers. But there seems to have been a serious problem developing in undergrad writing for some time, mainly caused by a shifting philosophy of referencing. No longer is referencing merely an additional tool of discussion, used to prevent plagiarism by giving due credit: referencing has evolved to become the main form of argument, instead of the critical discussion undergrad writing should contain. We do need referencing, because it does address issues like plagiarism, and it does allow students to demonstrate their research. However, the current system that values references above critical analysis is in dire need of repair: because referencing is ruining writing.