[Rd] Citation for R

[Gordon K Smyth]

On Tue, June 14, 2005 12:49 am, Thomas Lumley said:
> On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, Gordon K Smyth wrote:
>
>> This is just a note that R would get a lot more citations if the
>> recommended citation was an article in a recognised journal or from a
>> recognised publisher.
>>
>
> This is unfortunately true, but R is *not* an article or a book, it is a
> piece of software.  I don't think I'm the only person who thinks it is
> counterproductive in the long run to encourage users to cite an article
> that they probably haven't read instead of citing the software they
> actually used.
>
> Jan's suggestion of the Journal of Statistical Software might provide a
> solution, since JSS *does* publish software.
>
>  	-thomas

In the biology world, it is common to publish an article announcing a software project, and to
cite that.  The referees of the article are expected to try out and comment on the software.  This
gives the authors credit, and ensures that both the article and the software have been peer
refereed, at least to a limited extent.

If the issue of formal citation doesn't worry the R core team, I won't worry about it either.  I'm
currently revising an article going to Nature which will simply say in the text that quantities
"were calculated using R statistical software (http://www.r-project.org)".

Gordon