BRMK557
Research Methodology &
Intellectual Property Rights
Module II – Part B
Module II – Part B
•Attributions and Citations: Giving Credit Wherever Due
•Citations: Functions and Attributes,
•Impact of Title and Keywords on Citations,
•Knowledge Flow through Citation,
•Citing Datasets,
•Styles for Citations,
•Acknowledgments and Attributions,
•What Should Be Acknowledged,
•Acknowledgments in Books, Dissertations,
•Dedication or Acknowledgments.
Highlight the importance of expanding attributions and acknowledgments to
roles and responsibilities beyond primary authors of journal articles or
principal investigators of grant proposal documents.
This would be applicable especially to scientific research projects that involved
diverse skill sets and expertise.
Academic writing, by definition, must follow certain rules and conventions.
Among the most important of these are the rules and conventions about citing,
referencing, attributing, and acknowledging the works of others. That means
giving proper credit wherever due.
Citing is the practice of quoting from, referring to other authors’ works and
ideas in the text of our work in such a way that the context is clear to the
reader. Referencing is the listing of the full publication details of a published
work that is cited so as to give background information to the readers.
Acknowledgment in research publications indicates contributions to
scientific work.
However, acknowledgment, attributions, and citations differ in the
manner of their application.
Acknowledgment is arguably more personal, singular, and simply an
expression of appreciations and contribution.
In this chapter, we address these issues in detail apart from the legal
challenges when attributions and citations are not adequately done.
3.1 Citations: Functions and Attributes
Citations (references) credit others for their work, while allowing the readers
to trace the source publication if needed.
Any portion of someone else’s work or ideas in papers, patents, or
presentations must be used in any new document only by clearly citing the
source.
This applies to all forms of written sources in the form of texts, images,
sounds, etc. and failure to do may be considered plagiarism which will be
described in detail in subsequent chapters of this book. One should avoid
distress and embarrassment by learning exactly what to cite.
Depending on the exact type of material, the researcher may need to give due
credit to the creator of the original source.
The growth of knowledge in any field of study, especially in technological
fields, is primarily incremental and a researcher invariably and naturally
builds upon prior information.
There are well-established means of spreading knowledge through
publication of patents, papers (conference paper and the peer-reviewed
journal paper), or articles, and also through textbooks and classrooms.
While it is true that a research needs to leverage the prior art in the area
of research interest so as to make further development, at the same time
it is important to ensure that credit for that existing knowledge is suitably
acknowledged.
When a bibliography of previously published patents or papers is placed in the new
works of a researcher, a connection is established between the new and previous work.
As per relevance to context, the researcher provides due credit through the use of a
citation.
Citations help the readers to verify the quality and importance of the new work and
justification of the findings.
It is a way to tell readers that certain material in the researcher’s present work has come
from another source and as an ethical responsibility, appropriate credit has been given to
the original author or writer.
Materials that can be cited include journal papers, conference proceeding, books, theses,
newspaper articles, websites, or other online resources and personal communication.
Preferably, citations should be given at the end of a sentence or the end of a paragraph as
can be seen even in this particular paragraph.
Citation must contain enough details so that readers can easily find the referenced
material.
A researcher needs to cite each source twice:
(i) in-text citation, in the text of the article exactly where the source is quoted
or paraphrased, and
(ii) a second time in the references, typically at the end of the chapter or a
book or at the end of a research article.
Most citation styles have the same or similar elements, but differ on the
order of elements and layout. Unless otherwise specifically required by a
particular journal or a book, one may choose any style of one’s choice as
long as one is consistent.
The citation elements differ and so what is to be recorded can differ from one
source to another. It is also important to mention the date the source was
published and sometimes also the particular date it was accessed by the
researcher if it is related to web content.
LaTeX, a document preparation system often used by engineering researchers
to automatically format documents that comply with standard formatting
needs, is very effective to track and update citations.
LaTeX has a steep learning curve and will be repeatedly used in this book to
address different issues pertaining to technical writing which is intimately
linked with research for engineers.
There are three main functions of citation:
(i) Verification function:
Authors have a scope for finding intentional or unintentional distortion of
research or misleading statements.
Citation offers the readers a chance to ascertain if the original source is
justified or not, and if that assertion is properly described in the present work.
(ii) Acknowledgment function:
Researchers primarily receive credit for their work through citations.
Citations play crucial role in promotion of individual researchers and
their continued employment.
Many reputed organizations and institutes provide research funding
based on the reputations of the researchers.
Citations help all researchers to enhance their reputation and provide
detailed background of the research work.
iii) Documentation function:
Citations are also used to document scientific concepts and historical
progress of any particular technology over the years.
Citations are the currency that authors would wish to accumulate and the
technical community gives them credit for these contributions.
When other authors make citations, they honor those who initiated the
ideas.
Authors demonstrate their comprehension skills by identifying,
estimating, and incorporating other’s research work and then create and
express their own ideas precisely while acknowledging ownership of
ideas through citation [4].
Authors should cite sources to indicate significance of the work to the
reader.
Relevant citations help authors develop an easily understandable
argument and prevent the need to navigate through work irrelevant to the
reader’s interest areas.
Failure to cite appropriately infringes on the rights of the researcher who
did the original work.
There are certain cases when references do not fulfill the actual goal of
citations and acknowledgments, and thus do not benefit the reader.
1. Spurious citations:
In certain cases, when citation is not required or an appropriate one is not
found, if the author nevertheless goes ahead with including one anyways, it
would be considered as a spurious citation.
These sorts of citations do not add any value to the reader in terms of
properly understanding the paper.
Such actions result in loss of time of the reader or reviewer in looking for
the cited paper that is otherwise not relevant.
Just as due credit should be given to a paper through citation,
inappropriate credit must be avoided so that the credibility of a research
work or of the journal or conference proceedings where that paper is
published is not lost through this sort of carelessness.
2. Biased citations:
When authors cite the work of their friends or colleagues despite there
being no significant connection between the two works, or
when they do not cite work of genuine significance because they do
not wish to give credit in the form of citation to certain individuals,
then such actions can be classified as biased citations.
Neglect of citations to prior work whose conclusions or data
contradict the current work is also biased.
3. Self-citations:
There is nothing wrong in citing one’s prior work if the citation is really relevant.
Self-citation of prior papers is natural because the latest paper is often a part of a larger
research project which is ongoing.
Sometimes, it is also advantageous for the reader because citations of all the related works
of the same author are given in one paper and this may reduce the effort of the reader in
trying to find the full versions of those papers. However, it is helpful and ethical only if all
the papers are really relevant to the present work.
However, there can also be negative impact on the journal as well as individual researchers
due to inappropriate and irrelevant self-citations.
Self-citations in such cases may be either spurious or biased or even both.
Editors of journals who ignore such types of citations and allow by negligence or
otherwise, to be included in published materials end up directly or indirectly altering the
impact factor of those publications.
4. Coercive citations:
Despite shortcomings, impact factors remain a primary method of
quantification of research.
One side effect is that it creates an incentive for editors to indulge in coercion
to add citations to the editor’s journal.
Even if not explicitly stated, the implied message is that the author could
either add citations or risk rejection.
Such demands consequently diminish the reputation of the journal.
From the above discussions, it is clear that the author(s) must maintain a
balance between too few and too many citations.
At the same time, author(s) must give credit whenever due even if it is their
own work.
3.2 Impact of Title and Keywords on Citations
The citation rate of any research paper depends on various factors including significance
and availability of the journal, publication types, research area, and importance of the
published research work.
Other factors like length of the title, type of the title, and selected keywords also impact the
citation count [8].
Title is the most important attribute of any research paper.
It is the main indication of the research area or subject and is used by researcher as a
source of information during literature survey.
Title plays important role in marketing and makes research papers traceable.
A good title is informative, represents a paper effectively to readers, and gains their
attention.
Some titles are informative but do not capture attention of readers, some titles are
attractive but not informative or related to the readers’ research area [9].
The download count and citation of a research paper might be influenced by title.
There are three different aspects which provide a particular behavior to the title:
(i) types of the title,
(ii) length of the title, and
(iii) presence of specific markers.
Stremersch et al. [11] analyzed title characteristics of the papers published
during 1990–2002 in the area of research and studied relationship between title
characteristics and citation, which concluded that title length positively
affects the number of citations.
In another study, Sagi and Yechiam [12] found that highly amusing titles have
fewer citations and pleasant titles have no significant relation with citations.
In yet another study, Jacques and Sebire [8]
analyzed different papers’ titles and their citations hit for
25 most-cited and 25 least-cited research and review papers of a
particular genre of journals, and
found a strong association between title lengths and citation rates,
with highly cited articles having more than twice as many words in the
title compared with lower cited papers.
Jamali and Nikzad analyzed several open access papers and found that
articles with question-type titles are downloaded more but poorly cited
compared to the descriptive or declarative titles.
Declarative titles are downloaded and cited less than descriptive titles but
difference is not much.
As per analysis of Habibzadeh and Yadollahie [14], longer titles are strongly
associated with higher citation rates.
Longer titles mainly include the study methodology and/or results in more
detail, and so attracts more attention and citations [14].
In general, titles containing a question mark, colon, and reference to a
specific geographical region are associated with lower citation rates, also
result-describing titles usually get citations than method-describing titles.
Additionally, review articles and original articles usually receive more
citations than short communication articles.
At least two keywords in the title can increase the chance of finding and
reading the article as well as get more citations.
Keywords represent essential information as well as main content of the
article, which are relevant to the area of research.
Search engines, journal, digital libraries, and indexing services use keywords
for categorization of the research topic and to direct the work to the relevant
audience.
Keywords are important to ensure that readers are aware about research
articles and their content.
If maximum number of allowable keywords are used, then the chance of the
article being found increases and so does the probability of citation count of
the article.
Usage of new keywords should be minimal as such keywords may not be well
known to the research community and so may lead to low visibility of the
article.
3.3 Knowledge Flow Through Citation
Knowledge flows through verbal communications, books, documents, video,
audio, and images, which plays a powerful role in research community in
promoting the formulation of new knowledge.
In engineering research, knowledge flow is primarily in the form of books,
thesis, articles, patents, and reports.
Citing a source is important for transmission of knowledge from previous
work to an innovation [16].
Production of knowledge can be related to the citation network.
Knowledge flow happens between co-authors during research collaboration,
among other researchers through their paper citation network, and also
between institutions, departments, research fields or topics, and elements of
research [17].
Figure 3.1 shows the relationship between
citations, knowledge flow, and
elements such as researchers, papers, journal publications or
conferences, and institutions.
If paper A is cited by paper B, then knowledge flows through
citation networks across institutions.
Fig. 3.1
Citation-based
knowledge flow
The complex interdisciplinary nature of research encourages
scholars to cooperate with each other to grab
more advantages through collaboration,
thereby improving quality of the research.
Sooryamoorthy [18] examined the citation impact of the
South African publications among different collaboration types,
discipline and sectors, and
observed that co-authored publications had more citations than single
author paper and there was a positive co-relation between number of
authors and the number of citations [18].
Figure 3.2 shows a relationship between co-authorship and different types
of citations.
Three articles (X, Y, and Z) and
five references (X1, X2, X3, Y1, and Y2) of
article X and Y, respectively, are considered.
A, B, and C are authors of article X, and
D, E, F, G, and also A are authors of article Y.
Article Z has two authors H and E.
References X1, X2, X3, Y1, and Y2 have authors (A, P), (H, R), (D), (Q,
B, F), and (R), respectively.
Fig. 3.2
Co-authorship network
Based on co-authorship citation network,
references X1 and Y1 are considered self-citation,
reference X3 is a level-1 co-author citation because author of article Y is
direct collaborator of author A,
reference X2 is a level-1 co-author network because author A is
collaborator of E who collaborated with H.
We conclude that papers which frequently cite collaborators will also
often cite collaborators of collaborators.
Collaborations certainly impact citation counts.
3.3.1 Citing Datasets
The nature of engineering research has evolved rapidly and now relies
heavily on data to justify claims and provide experimental evidences [20]
and so data citations must fetch proper credit to the creator of the dataset as
citations of other objects like research articles.
Data citations should have provisions to give credit and legal attribution to
all contributors, enable identification and access, while recognizing that a
specific style may not apply to all data.
Ascertaining the ownership of data can be a complicated issue especially
with large datasets, and issues of funding can also make it a difficult matter.
A researcher should obtain necessary permission for using data from a
particular source.
Citations related to datasets should include enough information so
that a reader could find the same dataset again in the future, even if
the link provided no longer works.
It is proper to include a mixture of general and specific information
to enable a reader to be certain that the search result is the same
dataset that was sought.
3.3.2 Styles for Citations
Citation styles differ primarily in the order, and syntax of information
about references, depending on difference in priorities attributed to
concision, readability, dates, authors, and publications.
Some of the most common styles for citation (as well as other aspects of
technical writing) used by engineers are as follows:
1. ASCE style (American Society of Civil Engineers)
(a) Reference list:
This part is to be placed in the bibliography or references at the end of the
article or report.
A template with example for the same is given below:
2. IEEE style (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
IEEE style is standard for all IEEE journals and magazines, and is frequently
used for papers and articles in the fields of electrical engineering and
computer science.
The IEEE style requires endnotes and that references be cited numerically in
the text.
Those submitting to an IEEE publication should see guidelines for the
specific journal or magazine and may also refer to the complete IEEE
editorial style manual.
Some examples of IEEE styles of citations for different types of sources are
enumerated below:
3. ASME style (The Association of Mechanical Engineers)
3.4 Acknowledgments and Attributions
Acknowledgment section is a place to provide a brief appreciation of the
contribution of someone or an organization or funding body to the present
work.
If no particular guideline is available for the intended publication, then it
can be introduced at the end of the text or as a footnote.
Acknowledgment is a common practice to recognize persons or agencies for
being responsible in some form or other for completion of a publishable
research outcome.
Acknowledgment displays a relationship among people, agencies,
institutions, and research.
In some case, certain individuals may help in the research work
but may not deserve to be included as authors.
As a sign of gratitude, such contributions should be
acknowledged.
Classification of acknowledgment into six different categories like
moral, financial, editorial, institutional or technical, and
conceptual support.
Acknowledgments and attributions are also very important in the
publications of journal or conference papers.
Giving proper credit wherever it is due is very important and even if the
contribution is minor, it should not be neglected.
A researcher should always recognize the proprietary interest of others.
Whenever possible, author shall give name of persons who may be
responsible, even if nominally, for designs, inventions, writings, or other
accomplishments.
Given the importance of work published, authorship is also important.
The reward triangle theory shows a relationship between citations,
acknowledgment, and authorship.
In engineering research, acknowledgments are meant for
participating technicians,
students, funding agency,
grant number, institution, or anyone
who provide scientific inputs, shared unpublished results,
provided equipment, or participated in discussions.
3.4.1 What Should Be Acknowledged?
Every author should know that what should/should not be acknowledged.
Author should acknowledge quotation, ideas, facts, paraphrasing, funding
organization, oral discussion or support, laboratory, and computer work.
(i) Quotation: In technical writing such as in the field of engineering, quotes
are used very rarely. Quotations are of two types:
(a)Direct quotations are used when author use actual words or sentences in
the same order as the original one. Author should use quotation marks
for the words or sentences with proper acknowledgment.
(b) Indirect quotation summarizes or paraphrases the actual quote. In such
cases, it is important to acknowledge with proper name and date.
(ii) Authors should acknowledge people who give appropriate contribution in
their research work.
Non-research work contributions are not generally acknowledged in a
scientific paper but it may be in a thesis.
Persons must be acknowledged by authors, who gave a scientific or technical
guidance, take part in some discussions, or shared information to author.
Authors should acknowledge assistants, students, or technicians, who helped
experimentally and theoretically during the research work.
(iii) If the researcher received grant from a funding agency and if those funds
were used in the work reported in the publication, then such support should
always be acknowledged by providing full details of the funding program and
grant number in the acknowledgment section.
The authors should also gratefully acknowledge use of the services and
facilities of any center or organization with which they are not formally
affiliated to.
An example of acknowledgment of grant received is as follows:
If there are any concerns that the provision of the information provided in
acknowledgment may compromise the anonymity dependent on the peer
review policy of a particular journal or conference proceedings,
the author(s) may withhold the acknowledgment information until the
submission of the final accepted manuscript.
Many technical journals explicitly discourage authors to thank the
reviewers in their article submissions.
This could be construed as favoritism or an attempt to encourage reviewers
to accept their manuscript for reasons other than scientific merit.
Acknowledging that results have been presented elsewhere:
If the results were presented as an abstract in a journal, then there should be
a suitable citation.
If the results were presented as part of scientific meeting, symposium, or
other gathering, then some relevant information should be provided.
At the very least, the name of the gathering and year should be cited.
Other helpful items include the location of the gathering (city and state or
country) and the full date of the occasion.
By acknowledging all help received in one’s research work, the author(s)
demonstrate integrity as a researcher, which in turn encourages continued
collaboration from those who helped out in different ways.
One may also appropriately bolster one’s colleagues’ careers, as being
credited in an acknowledgment section is emerging as one of many ways a
researcher’s professional impact is evaluated.
Acknowledgment is no longer simply a means of expressing gratitude.
Funding agencies these days often require that their grant be acknowledged
and explicitly state the exact information to be provided if the research
work leads to a publication.
The grantee is responsible for assuring that an acknowledgment of support
is made in any publication (including websites) of any direct or indirect
outcomes from the funded project.
The format of required information is often explicitly stated in the terms
and conditions of grants provided.
Acknowledgments are also appropriate in technical presentations.
Failure to acknowledge funding may result in the discontinuation of current
funding and/or ineligibility to receive future funding for a certain number of
years or indefinitely.
Unless the information can be considered “common
knowledge,”
proper attribution of an idea, algorithm, computational
methodology, or experimental design is required
even if a journal operates with double-blind review.
Both reviewer and author identities are concealed from the
reviewers, and vice versa, during the review process.
3.4.2 Acknowledgments in Books/Dissertations
A page of acknowledgments is usually included at the beginning of a thesis/
dissertation immediately following the table of contents.
These acknowledgments are longer than the one or two sentence statements in
journal papers or articles in conference proceedings.
These detailed acknowledgments enable the researcher to thank all those
who have contributed in completion of the research work.
Careful thought needs to be given concerning those whose inputs are to be
acknowledged and in what order.
Generally, one should express appreciation in a concise manner and avoid
emotive language.
The following are often acknowledged in these types of acknowledgments:
main supervisor, second supervisor, peers in the lab, other academic staff
in the department, technical or support staff in the department, colleagues
from other departments, other institutions, or organizations, former
students, family, and friends.
3.4.3 Dedication or Acknowledgments?
Dedication is almost never used in a journal paper, an article in a conference
proceedings, or a patent, and it is used exclusively in larger documents like
books, thesis, or dissertations.
While acknowledgments are reserved for those who helped out with the book
in some way or another (editing, moral support, etc), a dedication is to
whomever the author would like it to be dedicated to, whether it is the author’s
mother, the best friend, the pet dog, or Almighty God.
And yes, it is possible to dedicate something to someone while also mentioning
them in the acknowledgments.
For example, one may dedicate a book to one’s spouse, but acknowledge them
for being the moral support and putting up with when one got very stressed.
The acknowledgments in technical books can be sometimes as brief as
the ones in journal articles.
The acknowledgment section of a technical report may be a
paragraph that is longer than a journal paper but shorter than
dissertations.
Generally, the length of the acknowledgment may have some
correlation with the length of the document.
Summary
Citation is a specific form of attribution, but attribution itself can be done
in many different ways. For engineers, citation is very useful to their careers
due to the prevailing publish or perish environment. Proper citation and
reference:
• Gives credit and respect to the original author(s).
• Allows readers to find the original source(s).
• Strengthens the credibility of your report. If a researcher does not cite the
sources, it is plagiarism.
Plagiarism is using another person’s ideas without giving credit or
citation and is an intellectual theft.
Plagiarism comes in varying degrees, and there are serious
consequences for a researcher if caught plagiarizing.
All academic and industrial research organizations have integrity and
misconduct policies.
Even past one’s time at a research organization, evidence of plagiarism
can affect the integrity and credibility and can also retrospectively make
an earned degree null and void.