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504 points puttycat | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.469s | source
1. tomrod ◴[] No.46182199[source]
How sloppy is someone that they don't check their references!
replies(1): >>46182627 #
2. analog31 ◴[] No.46182627[source]
A reference is included in a paper if the paper uses information derived from the reference, or to acknowledges the reference as a prior source. If the reference is fake, then the derived information could very well be fake.

Let's say that I use a formula, and give a reference to where the formula came from, but the reference doesn't exist. Would you trust the formula?

Let's say a computer program calls a subroutine with a certain name from a certain library, but the library doesn't exist.

A person doing good research doesn't need to check their references. Now, they could stand to check the references for typographic errors, but that's a stretch too. Almost every online service for retrieving articles includes a reference for each article that you can just copy and paste.