Academic Citation Practice: A Sinking Sheep?

An explosion in access to electronic databases and digital information is changing the way we view source citation. While the original purpose of referencing—showing the reader exactly where the author got his or her input—is clearly more important than ever, citation is increasingly taking on other roles, ones that have little to do with good scientific practice or effective communication of knowledge. One of the results is that myths and urban legends continue to flourish in academia, despite that we have never had better tools for preventing such misinformation.