Namedropping

Namedropping

Namedropping is a way of using (or rather abusing) bibliographic references in scholarly and scientific literature. The listing of many references which only "show-off" but which have not been used by the author and have no bearing on the argumentation.

Many scientific papers include a review of previous research on the subject of the paper, which is a legitimate use of references. It is also a legitimate use of references to point to important papers. In such cases may the review and the pointing out be considered a part of the papers arguments.

The use of bibliographical references (or rather the norms of citation behavior, cf. Kaplan, 1965) has developed historically, as demonstrated by, for example, Bazerman (1988) and Mustelin (1988). Namedropping must be considered a cultural phenomenon. It may also be influenced by online databases and the improved possibility to copy references.

The culture of namedropping may be a collective overreacting to the need for critical and explicit use of information sources. When banalities rather than substantial contributions are covered with references and when references are used more of social psychological reasons than argumentative reasons.

Literature:

Bazerman, C. (1988). Shaping Written Knowledge. The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press. http://wac.colostate.edu/books/bazerman_shaping/

Johnson, M. (1999). Scholarship, namedropping and the '5 minute test' . Nurse Education Today, 19(8), 599-600. (Editorial).

Kaplan, N. (1965). The norms of citation behavior: Prolegomena to the footnote. American Documentation, 16(3), 179–184.

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: 105-126.