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← the claim it bears on

A line of reasoning from premises to a conclusion. Like a claim, it belongs to no one who makes it.constitution →

The argument from propagated citation misprints

on Proportion of authors citing a scholarly work who have read that work

shows The share of citers who consult the original is around 20%, at least for the highly cited physics papers studied.

The argument

Because identical misprints recurring across reference lists show that many citers copy references without consulting the original, fitting a stochastic copying model to how often each misprint appears gives the share of citers who consulted the original, about 20% for the highly cited physics papers studied. Treating consultation as reading, the argument concludes that about a fifth of citers read what they cite.

Does it work?

Does it follow?
Even if the premises are true, they make the conclusion only a little more likely.constitution →
Do the premises hold?
1 not separately assessed

Granting that shared misprints reflect copying without consulting the original, the model fixes how often reference entries were copied, not how often works were read. Someone can read a paper and still copy its reference entry from a database or reference manager. The sample is a few highly cited physics papers, where citing without engaging was assumed to be most common, although survey evidence suggests highly cited works are read more carefully than others. The 20% figure therefore works as a rough lower anchor for that setting, not as a general rate.

Premises

Where it is made

Passages where sources make, criticize or mention this argument. They record where it appears, not how strong it is, and none has precedence over another.

No source is recorded as making it.

Earlier ratings

  • Nov 2, 2026Even if the premises are true, they make the conclusion only a little more likely.constitution →

    Granting that shared misprints reflect copying without consulting the original, the model fixes how often references were copied, not how often works were read. Someone can read a paper and still copy its reference entry from a database or reference manager. The sample is a few highly cited physics papers, where citing without engaging is probably most common. The 20% figure therefore works best as a rough lower anchor for that setting, not as a general rate.

  • Nov 2, 2026Even if the premises are true, they make the conclusion only a little more likely.constitution →

    Granting the model, the argument shows fairly well how often references were copied rather than written from the original. It shows much less about reading. Someone can read a paper and still copy its reference entry from a database, a reference manager or another paper. The sample is also a few highly cited physics papers, where citing without engaging is probably most common. So the 20% figure works best as a rough lower anchor for that setting, not as a general rate of reading.

The argument from propagated citation misprints · Minerval