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Is referencing a question on research level from StackExchange in the footnote of a thesis appropriate?

Community
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2 Answers2

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It's not in Academia.SE answers, but check this out:

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So yes, you can cite an answer.

Allure
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  • This is an excellent answer, as it's point out this useful function, I did not know about. –  Oct 15 '20 at 18:46
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Maybe

I couldn't find anything specifically on footnotes, but there are some threads on acknowledgement and citation concerning SE contributions.

Acknowledgement

There are some questions concerning the acknowledgement of stackexchange discussions, with the accepted answers saying that is appropriate to acknowledge both the general SE community, as well as specific questions/answers.

Citation

Since citations are different from acknowledgements, the same does not automatically hold true for them. However, quoting from this answer:

Does something learnt from StackExchange need to be cited?

A lot of learning goes into a journal article. This learning comes from many sources. That which gets cited is only a small fraction of that. A scientist might (a) read a statistics book; (b) ask a friend; or (c) ask a question on Stats.StackExchange.com to learn more about how to analyse his or her data. In both cases, the person has devised an analysis plan based on having learnt something. However, generally these sources are not cited. In each case the scientist has learnt how to do something, but ultimately the knowledge is already established in the literature.

I also think that the vast majority of posts on StackExchange do not constitute a citable unit of original research. That said, where this does occur and it it influences your work, it makes sense to cite the source.

nonthevisor
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