Citing past scientific work in present-day research papers can be a slippery business. Contributions from competing labs can be glossed over, pertinent studies accidentally left out, or similar research not mentioned in an attempt to give the study at hand a sheen of novelty. We at __The Scientist__ often hear complaints from our readers concerning what they regard as either honest or purposeful omissions in the reference lists of high-profile scientific papers. So we conducted a linkurl:study;http://www.the-scientist.com/citationamnesia/survey/ of our own to try and quantify the prevalence of these types of slights and ask our readers how the problem might be fixed.
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Indeed, the vast majority of the survey's roughly 550 linkurl:respondents;http://www.the-scientist.com/citationamnesia/results/ -- 85% -- said that citation amnesia in the life sciences literature is an already-serious or potentially serious problem. A full 72% of respondents said their own work had been regularly or frequently ignored in the citations...





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