Vladimir_M comments on Follow-up on ESP study: "We don't publish replications" - Less Wrong

71 Post author: CarlShulman 12 July 2011 08:48PM

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Comment author: JoshuaZ 12 July 2011 12:25:40AM *  7 points [-]

A paper without any citations is generally considered such a bad source that it's only one step up from wikipedia. You can cite it, if you must, but you better not base your research on it.

If this were true how would anyone ever get the first citation?

(Incidentally in my own field, there are a lot of papers that don't get cited. It isn't because the papers are wrong (although some very small fraction of them have that problem) but that they just aren't interesting. But math is very different from most other fields.)

Comment author: Vladimir_M 12 July 2011 07:27:55PM 3 points [-]

If this were true how would anyone ever get the first citation?

Zed didn't say you should never cite a previously uncited paper, only that you shouldn't invest time and effort into work that depends on the assumption that its conclusions are sound. There are many possible reasons why you might nevertheless want to cite it, and perhaps even give it some lip service.

Comment author: jsalvatier 12 July 2011 07:37:04PM 1 point [-]

Especially if it's your own.

Comment author: Vladimir_M 12 July 2011 07:45:31PM 3 points [-]

Self-citations are usually counted separately (both for formal purposes and in informal assessments of this sort).