I came across an interesting social media post recently in preparation for a professional skills development workshop that I was presenting. The post discussed how academics tend to “cite up” in terms of referencing older, more famous scholars relative to more junior researchers. I thought about this proposition in light of my own citation strategies and knowledge of bibliometrics and concluded that this statement is likely true, but probably not for any explicit bias against junior researchers, as some might posit.

First and foremost, we must consider the purpose of citing research—to represent a source of evidence and indicate that someone didn’t just make up what they’re saying. It’s been established in previous work, and we pay that research kudos to further our argument in context. References are also useful for “cutting a long story short”—one can cite another’s work that can more fully explain a concept without having to reiterate the whole thing. When I use a reference in my arguments, given that I’m trying to convince the reader of my point, I want to use the most credible source(s) that I can find.

If Author A is at the apex of credible sources in the field, I’m going to cite them where appropriate. Indeed, if I was reviewing a relevant paper and didn’t see Author A cited, I might be concerned. Of course, one can include multiple citations, but perhaps the reason why more junior or early career researchers are not cited (relative to the Author As out there) is that other researchers may not be as familiar with the early career researchers”—Author Es’—research.

Maybe the citing researcher remembers the research but not the name of the author. Obviously, Author E’s work hasn’t seemed to “stick” yet, maybe because they’re yet to make a bigger........

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