Citations are the bread and butter of academia, or maybe its prison cigarettes. They link us together, somewhere between a map to show us the way and an informal currency. They’re part of how the world grades us, a measure more objective than letters from our peers but that’s not saying much. It’s clear why we we want to be cited, but why do we cite others?

For more reasons than you’d expect.

First, we cite to respect priority. Since the dawn of science, we’ve kept track not only of what we know, but of who figured it out first. If we use an idea in our paper, we cite its origin: the paper that discovered or invented it. We don’t do this for the oldest and most foundational ideas: nobody cites Einstein for relativity. But if the idea is at all unusual, we make sure to give credit where credit is due.

Second, we cite to substantiate our claims. Academic papers don’t stand on their own: they depend on older proofs and prior discoveries. If we make a claim that was demonstrated in older work, we don’t need to prove it again. By citing the older work, we let the reader know where to look. If they doubt our claim, they can look at the older paper and see what went wrong.

Those two are the most obvious uses of citations, but there are more. Another important use is to provide context. Academic work doesn’t stand alone: we choose what we work on in part based on how it relates to other work. As such, it’s important to cite that other work, to help readers understand our motivation. When we’re advancing the state of the art, we need to tell the reader what that state of the art is. When we’re answering a question or solving a problem, we can cite the paper that asked the question or posed the problem. When we’re introducing a new method or idea, we need to clearly say what’s new about it: how it improves on older, similar ideas.

Scientists are social creatures. While we often have a scientific purpose in mind, citations also follow social conventions. These vary from place to place, field to field, and sub-field to sub-field. Mention someone’s research program, and you might be expected to cite every paper in that program. Cite one of a pair of rivals, and you should probably cite the other one too. Some of these conventions are formalized in the form of “citeware“, software licenses that require citations, rather than payments, to use. Others come from unspoken cultural rules. Citations are a way to support each other, something that can slightly improve another’s job prospects at no real cost to your own. It’s not surprising that they ended up part of our culture, well beyond their pure academic use.