Scientists' referencing (mis)behavior revealed by the dissemination network of referencing errors

This study illustrates scientists' referencing (mis)behavior by structuring the dissemination network of referencing errors. The sample set consists of 16,622 referencing errors of a highly cited paper published by Laemmli, UK in Nature in 1970. Dissemination networks of thirteen types of volume-page double errors and one type of page-only error are constructed and analyzed. Focusing on papers which carry the same volume-page double error, or the same page error, the citing-cited relationship between any two of them was identified and author bylines were compared to find common author(s). Our investigation results in three disseminating routes of referencing errors. Route 1: Citing a paper and copying its reference; Route 2: Copying a reference from another paper but without citing this paper; Route 3: Copying references from an earlier paper published by the author himself (herself) without rechecking the accuracy of the reference. The first two routes reflect scientists' referencing misbehavior while the third calls attention to self-copying of references.