Nothing distinguishes writing as scholarly more than precision in the use of references from the literature. 

After my first textbook was published, an author whose work I greatly admire, gave me some blunt feedback that I first mistook as not being particularly flattering. She said: “You cited me correctly.” That’s it; not a word more.

I now see that while it wasn’t the glowing endorsement I hoped for, her comment reflected her view of me as a scholar.  That I had read her work carefully. That I had not misrepresented the gestalt or the priorities that drive her work.  I had not taken her words out of context or relied on how secondary sources referenced them. 

Citations can be inaccurate; so trivial as to be meaningless or worse, misleading. There is no clearer sign of a scholar than one who never trusts a secondary citation to be accurate. That’s the person obsessive about double checking the accuracy of a quote or positioning a reference within a sentence to be sure it is not going beyond what the author actually wrote. Sometimes a reference is a historical artifact in that it acknowledges a word or phrase that has come to be associated with a specific person.

Referencing in an academic text is not just a rite of passage a writer has to go through to establish their credibility. They are a mirror, not always flattering, into the depth, breadth, and currency of reading and expertise. It is a moral and ethical obligation to represent someone’s writing accurately.

Scholars are as true to their use of references as good journalists are to respect their sources.