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Let's say I have been studying an older theorem statement and its proof. I feel that it can be improved, e.g., I can make it a stronger double-implication theorem statement, with a different proof. Would I still need to cite the paper from which I first studied the theorem? Even though my work is completely organic and self-contained?

Thanks,

Martin Sleziak
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User001
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    Wouldn't hurt to mention it as context to what you are improving. – gowrath Sep 29 '16 at 01:39
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    Yes, you need to cite it. If it's at all possible even to make a weak argument as to why you should cite something, you probably should be citing it. I know where you're coming from though. – Matt Samuel Sep 29 '16 at 01:40
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    @MattSamuel: Sounds a bit extreme? Should I cite Leibniz whenever I use the chain rule for derivatives too? After all that's why he invented the notation... – user541686 Sep 29 '16 at 06:41
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    @Mehrdad Wouldn't you cite Leibniz if you claimed a novel, improved chain rule and proof thereof? The question here was not about mere usage, but rather building upon. – dxiv Sep 29 '16 at 07:12
  • @dxiv: Hm, I actually have not thought about it, so I don't know! It sounds like citing Newton if I invented some new calculus technique, which sounds kind of silly. – user541686 Sep 29 '16 at 08:28
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    Especially with search engines nowadays, a reader of the old paper would be able to find your improvement by looking for papers that cite the old paper. – RemcoGerlich Sep 29 '16 at 08:41
  • @RemcoGerlich I would upvote that as an answer - even if one doesn't care about the ethics (should I cite to give credit to previous work) or broader picture (should I cite to establish context for my self-contained work), then at the very least citing will help progress how well your paper may be found and by extension your career. – CompuChip Sep 29 '16 at 21:08
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    I wondered if this belonged on academia.SE, but if it is hypothetical perhaps not. – PJTraill Sep 29 '16 at 22:03
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    Citations aren't just a requirement in order to give credit to people, they're helpful pointers to relevant literature that readers might like to know about. By citing all relevant previous research you're helping readers get a picture of the area you're working in, what's been done, what's known, what's unknown, etc.. Citations are connections between your work and other work, the more connections the better. – Andrew Sep 30 '16 at 19:02
  • Is there any reason not to cite it? Perhaps you think that the fact that someone else has done something similar can hurt the relevance of your work. In fact, it is the opposite. It shows that at least one other person cared about this idea. If there was no citation, I might wonder if the question was worth asking in the first place. – Jair Taylor Oct 02 '16 at 18:51

3 Answers3

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I've done everything in my research completely from scratch. I require no outside results to prove my theorems (I'm writing a blog about this, mostly because I don't have time to write papers; here is a link to the blog). My methods are new and almost unrecognizable if you're coming from the classical theory. But obviously I didn't come up with these things in a vacuum, and I searched and there have been others with very similar ideas. I read lots of stuff and synthesized it into new stuff that does the same thing but a little bit better. This is what every researcher does to one extent or another. Would you even have thought of this if you hadn't seen the past result? Probably not. So give them credit!

Matt Samuel
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Adding this only because I think the point wasn't emphasized enough in the other answers, but it may actually hurt the credibility - or, at least, the perceived professionalism - of your paper if you did not cite the old result. An important part of research is to establish context and relevance, and anyone who happens to know or find the old result might (wrongly) conclude that you didn't carry out that part as expected if you didn't cite the prior work.

dxiv
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    Notably, Einstein's relativity publications were extremely light on relevant citations, and one result of that has been historical controversy that [continues to this day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute). – bright-star Sep 29 '16 at 14:55
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    I probably should've mentioned this in my answer, but having it in yours is just as useful, right? – Matt Samuel Sep 29 '16 at 16:37
  • @MattSamuel One could read it between the lines in your answer, too, but I thought it's worth having it spelled out loud and clear. – dxiv Sep 29 '16 at 17:23
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I'm not 100% sure, but you should always cite something if you can. If it inspired your result, you should be citing it.

Carl Schildkraut
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