11-21-2012 Blog Post – Ahmad Woods

Reading an excerpt from Howard’s “Hot Type: A Modern Scholar’s Ailments: Link Rot and Footnote Flight”  describes the purpose of citation and there’s six of them;  acknowledgment, attribution, tracing, validation, protection against accusations of misconduct. I think probably the most important reason for citation is validation.  It’s nice to have that cushion to know someone has done some sort of research on on this because then you know that the topic may be actually worth researching. Needless to say it also makes you look good when you pull out all sorts of references; it validates your research since now you have evidence to support you claims.