Hello.
I'm almost done with my Ph.D. thesis, and while looking for some critical views of Gene Ontology I've stumbled over an interesting blog post by Kay on the subject. He quotes some papers which I promptly added in the thesis's references, but I would like to add also some of his blog posts in the reference. Has anyone ever added blog posts to their references? Is this an acceptable practice?
EDIT: Moved to another, more appropriate forum.
forum posts?
Well.. and what about referencing forum posts in a thesis/article?
Examples of good forums on biology/bioinformatics:
- http://www.protocol-online.org/forums/index.php
- http://molecularbiology.forums.biotechniques.com/forums/index.php
- http://www.biology-online.org/biology-forum/
- http://nodalpoint.org/forum
- http://www.molecularlab.it/forum/
NCBI guidelines
The NCBI now have guidelines for citing blogs.
Blog citation index
The NCBI now have guidelines for citing blogs
That's cool! Now all we need is a way to record when someone cites our blog, then we can build the blog citation index ;)
Oh wait, this is the brave new world, not an attempt to mimic the old one.
blogs in reference list
At Nature, we are happy for authors to reference blog posts or websites, but we would not include them in the formal reference list unless they were accredited independent sites, eg a public database. We'd include the URL or permalink in the text, in a similar style to the way we include "personal communication". Online, this would be a live link.
BTW, it is correct to say that at Nature we would consider a submission based on a thesis that had previously been posted on a blog for discussion and feedback among other scientists.
Citing blog posts
This has come up before, I think.... can't find any relevant links, though.
I vaguely remember that the answer is yes, it's acceptable, as long as you use something like WebCite to point to a permanent resource and note the time / date on which you retrieved the blog post (in case the author edits it significantly).
I also vaguely remember that Nature would be OK with citing blog posts in the right context. Maybe I'm making that up, though, need to check.
So not common but acceptable?
about theses
FYI. Not an anwser to your question, but I also remember this post from Timo on Nature Network: The question was " Preprint a doctoral thesis as a manuscript on Nature Precedings?" : We’ve already had some enquiries about this, and in principle I think we would accept them. My main concern is that theses don’t overwhelm the other forms of content, but I guess that’s unlikely. Of course, we would apply the same acceptance criteria to theses as to other contributions.
Availability
I've thought about making my thesis publicly available after it's done. I'm probably going to use one of the print-on-demand services that are around online to publish it (aside offering a PDF for download).
New ways
I suspect that (1) few, if any, have done this before and (2) many would not see this as acceptable. In general, academic works are expected to reference rigorous, scholarly academic references. Also blog URLs may not be permanent.
This is not to say that I don't like the idea - I love it - or that blogs can't be scholarly, but I don't know that the academic world is ready for it. I'd like to know how it goes if you follow it through.
I'm not sure if it'll ever
I'm not sure if it'll ever be spotted - it's located deep in the discussion chapter when I explain why (in my opinion) Gene Ontology suffers from severe shortcomings (after the thesis is out I am thinking of blogging on the whole experience). I may try to go on and put it in, because the points raised in the blog post are quite interesting and the papers he links to (which I read and referenced as well) only scratch the surface of the problem.
I have to give my thesis to my tutor on Oct 18th for a preliminary correction - I'll let you know if it will be deemed as acceptable or not.
Acceptable
In my opinion is perfectly acceptable to use this type of source and cite it. It would be the same thing as using a newspaper or a magazine. The main difference here is that newspapers and magazines have a certain issue number and (supposedly) are a permanent reference.
Another way to cite it is as a personal communication, which is widely accepted in academia. You can even add an url to the source when you cite in the text.
Just my 2 cents.
Pers comm
fwiw, I like the pers. comm. approach. Add a footnote with the blog post URL, rather than including it in the formal reference list. I wouldn't play this card too often, though - it might give the right impression :-)
example of citing blog and wiki in masters thesis
My student Alicia used citations to experiment pages on our wiki and summarizing posts on our blog for her masters thesis. No problem.
http://usefulchem.wikispaces.com/Alicia+Holsey
Jean-Claude Bradley
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Drexel University
http://usefulchem.wikispaces.com
http://usefulchem.blogspot.com