Thread by @irishacw

There really needs to be a major effort to change the widespread mindset that referencing websites and scholarly web-articles cheapens academic writing. I'm growing increasingly weary of seeing sources and ideas drawn from my site appear with no corresponding reference. Thread /1

It's less and less credible in my view to see a bibliography that doesn't have at least a handful of non-primary source driven web references in it. We all use the web extensively-there's no reason why the efforts of those who share content openly online shouldn't be referenced/2

in the same way as those whose work is published in journals or academic presses. Judging and assessing a source is part of the toolkit of a historian. In my own experience, there is rarely any malice or bad intent in omitting these references, rather it's likely driven /3

by perceptions of what is and isn't scholarly, and what "looks" scholarly or not scholarly. The cutthroat nature of modern academia, where perception is so important, certainly does little to encourage appropriate online referencing. /4

Neither is it helped when some top scholars, such as one in my field, see blogging as "a pernicious waste of scholarly time...[that] serves to undermine large-scale, detailed research work...Blogging is like cheap grace-it demeans the real article, which is scholarly inquiry." /5

Such views do little but encourage scholars to omit references to the "non-academic" online content they use. There is no prospect of the internet becoming less of a research tool in years to come. Indeed, as the current pandemic is showing us, it will increase exponentially. /6

If we are serious about wanting to make sure that everyone's research is appropriately credited, not just the work that appears in "real articles", we have to recognise this as an issue, and seek to address it. Anyway, rant over...😀 /7