# What is the academically responsible way to deal with ideas taken from SDMB? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 25, 2008, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858 "2008-04-25T15:42:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/1 "2008-04-25T15:42:14Z")
Suppose I’m writing a research paper and I get an idea from a thread on this board. Perhaps a poster sketches the outlines of an interesting argument and I want to run with it. Would/should I be required to acknowledge this in my paper? How would I do so? (FWIW, this is hypothetical. None of you have inspired me lately. 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/2 "2008-04-25T15:53:43Z")
I’m not sure you’d be _obligated_ to acknowledge the source, given that message board postings are semi-anonymous and none of us can reasonably expect to get credit for them. Plus, it’d look pretty silly to credit someone named “tim314” in an academic paper. If you wanted to acknowledge the source, though, it’d probably make sense to e-mail the poster in question, asking if they’d want to be given credit, and if so, what their actual name is. Then you could credit them as “Tim Lastname – personal communication” or something like that. That wouldn’t seem so odd – more than once I’ve seen people cite private correspondence and such in published academic papers. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/3 "2008-04-25T16:20:45Z")
Typically whatever style your paper will be formatted with will define how to cite ambiguous or anonymous web sites. ETA. Your prof or TA googles something in your text and it comes back with an SDMB posting, they will be looking at you for plagiarism. Better safe than sorry even if you do flesh out the argument on your own. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/4 "2008-04-25T17:13:17Z")
[QUOTE=tim314] I’m not sure you’d be _obligated_ to acknowledge the source, given that message board postings are semi-anonymous and none of us can reasonably expect to get credit for them. Plus, it’d look pretty silly to credit someone named “tim314” in an academic paper. [/QUOTE] It does look silly, but I’ve seen it done in settings ranging from news articles to books. Usually the quoting author uses a more textual citation: “…who goes by the online name of **TimeWinder** ”, sometimes with the real name attached, if they know it. The best ones, in my opinion, are the ones that give enough detail that you’d be able to find the source if you needed to: “On 4/15/2008, on the Straight Dope Message Board (http: // boards.straightdope. com/sdmb), a user with the online name of **TimeWinder** writes that hummingbird hums don’t echo, and no one knows why…” But Projammer is right: if you’re lucky enough to be using a defined style guide, check it – this is becoming common enough that recent versions will mention it. I do think you’re obligated to cite, though; plagiarism is presenting the words or ideas of others as your own without attribution. Even if you don’t know who to attribute, you need to at least acknowledge that it wasn’t you. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/5 "2008-04-25T17:43:14Z")
And if you’re lucky, the poster cited won’t have a name that’s cringe-inducing in an academic paper. I’m sure **Hugh Jass** is a great guy and a fertile source of ideas, but all the same, I think in his case I’d follow **tim314** ’s advice above. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/6 "2008-04-25T17:54:11Z")
[QUOTE=tim314] I’m not sure you’d be _obligated_ to acknowledge the source, given that message board postings are semi-anonymous and none of us can reasonably expect to get credit for them. Plus, it’d look pretty silly to credit someone named “tim314” in an academic paper. If you wanted to acknowledge the source, though, it’d probably make sense to e-mail the poster in question, asking if they’d want to be given credit, and if so, what their actual name is. Then you could credit them as “Tim Lastname – personal communication” or something like that. That wouldn’t seem so odd – more than once I’ve seen people cite private correspondence and such in published academic papers. [/QUOTE] Keep in mind that acknowledging the source serves two purposes–it gives people a place to look for more information on a topic, and it avoids plagiarism by showing where you got the idea, assuming that the idea was not yours. Whether the original source expects credit is beside the point. Although, in academia, those who write papers which become published in peer-reviewed journals do want credit, because seeing how influential someone’s ideas were is one of the ways that people are judged for tenure purposes, etc. Still, I agree with **TimeWinder’s** ideas of appropriate ways to credit semi-anonymous people on the internet. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/7 "2008-04-25T18:23:47Z")
[QUOTE=TimeWinder] : “On 4/15/2008, on the Straight Dope Message Board (http: // boards.straightdope. com/sdmb), a user with the online name of **TimeWinder** writes that hummingbird hums don’t echo, and no one knows why…” [/QUOTE] umm…am I missing something? what kind of post from this board would need to be credited in a formal paper? If I am writing a masters thesis on hummingbirds, couldn’t I just open the paper by saying that " hums don’t echo, and this paper proposes a reason why". My paper would begin with a summary of previous research–based on other published journals, not on Tim314’s anonymous post on the SDMB. Now, in the true spirit of us Dopers, I assume that Tim314 would include our favorite word in his post about hummingbirds : CITE. And if I used his cite in my academic paper, wouldn’t I have to accredit the cite and _its_ sources, not Tim314? okay, I admit that I haven’t read a peer-reviewed academic journal for 20 years, but what am I not understanding here? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/8 "2008-04-25T19:54:51Z")
Actually, I have published an article in a peer-reviewed paper that cited two Dopers ( **Bibliophage** and **whitetho** ), because they helped me to track down an obscure citation on a thread I posted. I just put something like “I acknowledge the assistance of **bibliophage** and **whitetho** of the SDMB on this point.” The editors at the journal never batted an eye. In another peer-reviewed paper, I acknowledged the assistance of **DSYoungEsq** under his off-screen name, but didn’t mention the SDMB because that was in an e-mail he sent me, not on-line. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/9 "2008-04-25T20:00:26Z")
[QUOTE=chappachula] umm…am I missing something? what kind of post from this board would need to be credited in a formal paper? If I am writing a masters thesis on hummingbirds, couldn’t I just open the paper by saying that " hums don’t echo, and this paper proposes a reason why". My paper would begin with a summary of previous research–based on other published journals, not on Tim314’s anonymous post on the SDMB. Now, in the true spirit of us Dopers, I assume that Tim314 would include our favorite word in his post about hummingbirds : CITE. And if I used his cite in my academic paper, wouldn’t I have to accredit the cite and _its_ sources, not Tim314? okay, I admit that I haven’t read a peer-reviewed academic journal for 20 years, but what am I not understanding here? [/QUOTE] Well, let’s say I said “humming birds don’t hum”, you said “cite”, and I said “see page 326 of _The Big Book of Hummingbirds_.” If you went and looked it up in the book, then I think you could just cite “_The Big Book of Hummingbirds_.” But if you can’t find the book and you’re just taking my word for it that that’s what the book says, you probably need to cite me as a secondary source. Although given that you have no idea what my credentials are, you’d probably be better off leaving my factual assertions out of your paper altogether. (Anyway, if the topic is hummingbirds, **colibri** is the doper you want to talk to.) I think that the OP isn’t actually talking about _factual_ claims (which you should be able to verify from more formal sources than a message board), but rather ideas. Like, say I posted something like: > [@tim314](#): > > I have a new idea for a theory of quantum gravity. I will outline it as follows: > (1) Start with string theory > (2) Replace strings with colorful bits of ribbon > (3) Hi, **Opal**. > (4) Compactify in 12 1/3 dimensions > (5) Voila! If you wanted to flesh that outline out into a paper, you would I suppose have no choice but to cite me, since the idea is original to me. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/10 "2008-04-25T20:03:35Z")
When a posting of mine from another messageboard was quoted in [The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/), they just cited me as “a poster on X”… I was a little peeved to be honest as I was perfectly contactable. I see it as an extremely lazy way of filling out an article, and talking to other posters on that forum it isn’t the first time a UK news outlet has lifted stuff from that particular messageboard either. ---
**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/11 "2008-04-25T20:12:23Z")
[QUOTE=TimeWinder] … hummingbird hums don’t echo, and no one knows why… [/QUOTE] Wow! Can I quote you on that? \* snerk\* Sorry. I agree with **TimeWinder** ’s suggestions, though, and was coming in here to second **Eureka** ’s take: in all things citational, you’re aiming to \*both \*give credit and leave a trail for information-seekers. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/12 "2008-04-25T23:23:20Z")
[QUOTE=emilyforce] Wow! Can I quote you on that? [/QUOTE] Make sure you get the attribution correct. Capital “T”, capital “W.” My cite is [here](http://gallery.mac.com/ckempke#100038) (video clip of hummingbirds, no audio) – listen; no echoes. **chappachula** , your point is well taken that the SDMB might not be a very good source (in the citations & experts sense) of factual information (see above), but there are plenty of papers/articles which cite opinion, eyewitness accounts, socialogical trends (if I see another mainstream news article talking about “Second Life,” for example, I’m likely to scream), and other things for which inexpert quotes might still have value. And for independently verifiable or technical information, even expertise might be found among us. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-academically-responsible-way-to-deal-with-ideas-taken-from-sdmb/446858/13 "2008-04-26T19:15:29Z")
[QUOTE=TimeWinder] (video clip of hummingbirds, no audio) – listen; no echoes. [/QUOTE] Nicely done. 😃