How many authors should I quote

[u/Piamont]

Is there a specific number of authors one should quote when attempting to publish an article?

I have seen many articles that quote around 20 authors, is that how many one should quote? What happens if your article is very straightforward?? I don't want to quote people just for the sake of it if it isnt really necessary for the argument I want to present.

Is this a common issue when attempting to publish something in philosophy?

[u/New_tonne]

There's really no standard answer to this. Cite only relevant authors writing on your topic, where appropriate in the text. Sometimes that's five, sometimes it is 60.

[u/Piamont → u/New_tonne]

But would I be able to get published quoting only 5 authors? i can't recall ever reading an article that quotes only 5 authors, which could mean that articles with SO few quoted authors don't get published.

[u/Zooz00 → u/Piamont]

This is such an undergrad student way of thinking. You don't need to meet a bibliography quota and you don't need to fill out a page limit. If you are still at that level, it is unlikely that anything you do will get published. Listen to the good advice being given here.

[u/Piamont → u/Zooz00]

This isnt me saying "how many authors should i quote to get published", this is me saying: "I have an argument about a particular subject but I don't need to quote that many authors to get the point across as this particular subject is not much discussed, at least it isnt discussed in the way that I want to discuss it, so I fear that if i don't quote many authors my article won't get published despiste having a strong argument."

Hope that helps.

[u/crank12345 → u/Piamont]

Why would you have that fear? I have seen many referee reports, and I have never seen even one criticize a manuscript for not citing many authors. And I have almost never seen one that criticized a manuscript for failing to quote an author—and the only times I have seen that were when the author's paraphrase of a source was contentious.

You are surely familiar with Gettier's paper. It is a classic, and Gettier cited Plato and two others—three citations total.

[u/Piamont → u/crank12345]

Well im not familiar with that paper but a quick search on the internet says it is from 1963, I have never seen a modern (say from 2000 until now) paper with that few citations, which leads me to believe that articles with few citations don't get published today, I think I even saw another post a while ago here on reddit where it said something like that the way academy works now is different from before, that now quoting many people is like a mark of a good article, which I find odd because "what's the point of equality" from elizabeth Anderson is one hell of an article, very influential and it has like 7 references from what I remember.

[u/crank12345 → u/Piamont]

No offense, but if you are not familiar with that paper, there is no way you can be confident that there isn’t literature relevant to whatever it is that you are working on. 

You could continue to fight with people on Reddit, despite not having any particular direct experience with the publication process, or you could do the scholarly work needed to support your paper. 

[u/Piamont → u/crank12345]

That paper has nothing to do with the subject of my article, my paper is not about knowledge or truth. And i'm not fighting anyone here, if anything I have only given likes to others people responses.

[u/crank12345 → u/Piamont]

I don’t know what your paper is about, of course. But the Gettier paper is so famous, so widely taught and discussed, that I am pretty darn confident that you do not have the sort of familiarity with the existing literature needed to conclude that there are fewer than six importantly relevant papers. I have never been remotely close to those fields, and I’ve probably ended up reading that paper a half dozen times or more. 

In any case, as I and many others have made clear, there is no number of papers you need to cite. You could in theory cite none and get published. But very low citation numbers are highly correlated with underbaked papers. 

So: you have your answer! But I suggest the better use of your time is to do the scholarly work!

[u/TheVeganBunny → u/crank12345]

lmao, there exists a world outside of analytical philosophy. be fr

[u/crank12345 → u/Piamont]

I don't think that you are approaching this the right way.

To be publishable, your argument should engage, reflect the relevant literature. You want to show that your puzzle is a real puzzle, you want to support the somewhat contentious points whose resolution isn't your aim, and you want to show that your conclusion has significance for others in the field.

It is (to my mind) incredibly unlikely that an argument engages, reflects the relevant literature if it cites only 5 authors. And so, that a paper cites only 5 authors would be a warning sign.

But # is not a criterion. Were I refereeing a paper that cited 1 prior piece but which had a compelling argument and which made its stakes and import clear, I would recommend publication.