Citing blogs on scientific papers

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | Publishing, Science, Web

lusitania I was recently asked if one of my post could be cited as a personal communication (pers. comm.) on an upcoming scientific paper, that is, instead of citing the blog post directly. The authors of the paper foresee (quite rightly I believe) that the journal will not accept the reference to this electronic media, hence the need for the well accepted and common alternative.

Most people in academia will cringe at the thought of formally citing a page that exists only on the internets. One main objection is that the electronic information could not be there the next time one tries to access it. This is what has kept the ICZN from allowing publication of new species names in online peer-reviewed journals, even well established ones.

In reality formal citation of electronic media has become more common than scientists realize. In systematics, for example, many of the specialized software we use is distributed directly by the authors (who are research biologists themselves), and URLs to the pages where these applications can be downloaded are included as part of the citation. Many electronic databases accessible through the web, like antbase.org and antweb.org for myrmecology, have accumulated multiple formal citations in recent years. And if that doesn’t convince you just think about the ubiquity of GenBank– after all, a list of GenBank accession numbers is nothing but the digital identifiers of information about particular pieces of genetic information stored on an database that is accessible online.

Pers. comm. to me is the right comparison for a blog post (at least the type of posts I write): part of the content is original unpublished information; part is word of mouth circulating within the scientific community; part is published information. Above all, it is the blogger’s subjective opinion on a topic. But most importantly for citation purposes, blog posts are not peer-reviewed material. As long as people bear this in mind, I see referring to a blog post as a legitimate practice equivalent to pers. comm. There is a significant difference, however. By providing an URL the author (the editor) allows anyone who so wishes to check the original source for further details. As such, a blog citation serves as an enhanced pers. comm.

A sign of the (slowly rising) acceptance of blogging in academic circles is the inclusion of standards on how to cite electronic media in style manuals. As with printed media, there are now many acceptable ways to cite a blog post, varying from journal to journal. Citing this post can be done as following:

Keller, R. A. (2009) Citing blogs in scientific papers. [Weblog.] Archetype. May 27. (http://roberto.kellerperez.com/2009/05/citing-blogs-on-scientific-papers/). Date accessed.

And my recent post on the clypeus would be,

Keller, R. A. (2009) Homology Weekly: Clypeus. [Weblog.] Archetype. May 22. (http://roberto.kellerperez.com/2009/05/homology-weekly-clypeus/). May 27 2009.