Re: Author's final draft and citing

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:29:56 -0400

On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 1:25 PM, Jean-Claude Guédon
<jean.claude.guedon_at_umontreal.ca> wrote:

> Regarding point 2, how does one cite the "published work" if one has no
> access to it, and has only access to a version which is not paginated
> in the same way (e.g. Elsevier articles cannot be archived in the
> publisher's format)?

Assuming this refers to quoting rather than citing, this query was
already explicitly answered in my prior posting (and many past
ones): Published works for which one lacks the pagination should
be quoted by section heading and paragraph number. (In fact, these
digital days, it is probably better to quote paginated works that
way too!)

> In many disciplines, citing requires mentioning the page number of
> the citation. What to do if that remains inaccessible. And please,
> do not tell me that you then write to the author(s).

I am not sure whether Jean-Claude is referring to citing or quoting
(i.e., specifying the location of a specific passage).

For citing, use the usual bibliographic information: author, year,
title, journal, volume, year, page-span. (Bibliographic information
is available from many free indexes, e.g., PubMed.)

For quoting passages, use the method described above.

(Write to the authors only if you have something substantive to say
to or ask of them.)

>This point has been made many times too, but without ever receiving a
> correct answer, i.e. an acknowledgement of its unsolved nature.

The point has been completely answered, many times. No problem.
Nothing to solve.

> One solution for this problem is simply for IR's to declare (after
> inspection) their version to be citable.

What on earth does this mean? If a work is published, one cites the
published version. If I post a copy of the Mona Lisa on my website,
what does it mean to declare that version "citable"? That I no
longer need to state that the original resides in the Louvre? Or
that my copy is now declared an "original"?

Stevan Harnad

> Le mardi 30 septembre 2008 à 10:29 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit :
>
> This question has been raised many times and it has a simple, clear
> and correct answer, in two parts:
>
> (1) Do not conflate the question of what to CITE -- that is always the
> canonical published work itself, if the work is published -- with the
> question of what version of it you managed to ACCESS.
>
> (2) If you cannot afford access to the publisher's proprietary
> version, then you access the OA version deposited in the OA
> Repository, but you always cite the published work (and,
> preferentially, add the URL of the accessed version too).
>
> That's it. The only two other minor details are:
>
> (3) If the work is unpublished, or not yet published, you cite it as
> unpublished, and, again, add the URL of the version that you accessed.
>
> (4) The two reasons why it is vastly preferable that OA mandates
> should specify that it is the author's peer-reviewed, accepted final
> draft (the "postprint") that is deposited in the OA repository,
> rather than the publisher's proprietary PDF is (4a) that far more
> publishers endorse setting access to the author's deposited postprint
> as OA immediately, rather than after and embargo, and (4b) PDF is the
> least useful and functional format, for both human users and for robot
> data-mining.
>
> Some comments below:
>
>> From: Repositories discussion list
>> [mailto:JISC-REPOSITORIES_at_jiscmail.ac.uk] On Behalf Of S Nieminen
>> Sent: 22 September 2008 07:25
>> To: JISC-REPOSITORIES_at_jiscmail.ac.uk
>> Subject: Author's final draft and citing
>>
>> How have your academics reacted to the fact that it is often the
>> un-paginated author's version that needs to be put in the repository
>> instead of the pretty publisher's version?
>
> Pagination is a red herring. In quoting excerpts, specify locus with
> section heading and paragraph number.
>
>> I'm having to speak to a
>> number of people shortly and this will come up more and more. Some
>> research staff are worried that the draft does not "look good" or that
>> they won't get cited from papers that have not page numbers etc.
>
> An OA postprint "looks" infinitely better than an inaccessible
> publisher's PDF to would-users who cannot afford access. And they
> certainly generate more citations (for the canonical, published work).
>
>> Research seems to show a great increase in number of downloads for OA
>> papers, however, are author draft versions getting cited more? How would
>> this happen? Do people read the draft paper and THEN chase up the
>> published version whether freely available or not?
>
> No, they read and use the accessible draft and cite the canonical
> published work.
>
> Stevan Harnad
Received on Tue Sep 30 2008 - 20:33:17 BST