El Duvelle on Nostr: Can we please collectively agree to write references the informative way in our ...
Can we please collectively agree to write references the informative way in our papers? 🙏
I mean [ThisPerson et al., 2010] instead of [5]
What is even the point of having references as numbers? The only reason is non-scientific: saving space. But it actually makes it more difficult to read or review properly - either you just don’t bother checking the refs (bad), or you spend additional time checking them (annoying). With the informative format, you can just read seamlessly if you recognize the ref and mentally check if it makes sense in context, or you can decide to spend the time looking it up if you don’t know it. Or, if you don’t care, you can just visually skip them. Come on!
I mean [ThisPerson et al., 2010] instead of [5]
What is even the point of having references as numbers? The only reason is non-scientific: saving space. But it actually makes it more difficult to read or review properly - either you just don’t bother checking the refs (bad), or you spend additional time checking them (annoying). With the informative format, you can just read seamlessly if you recognize the ref and mentally check if it makes sense in context, or you can decide to spend the time looking it up if you don’t know it. Or, if you don’t care, you can just visually skip them. Come on!