New Scientist, 102 (1411) p.49, 1984.

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Competition

Robert Brooks (Forum, 5 April, p. 45) advises "never cite your enemies in the bibliography. The danger here is that the editor may select referees from your list of references ..."

In the Journal of the American Medical Association (Vol:218, p 886) I indicated that it is necessary to quote your competitors. If you would have people locate your publications through Science Citation Index, whenever innocent strangers look up your enemies, they will be certain to learn about your publications. This is a new variation on the uncertainty principle. The closer you get to ignoring your competition the closer you come to oblivion. To achieve a total state of oblivion always use clever but ambiguous titles in your papers, use a pseudonym and publish in any one of the numerous obscure languages available.

Eugene Garfield, Ph.D.
Institute for Scientific Information
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania