Scholars in the Humanities Are Reluctant to Cite E-Texts as Primary Materials. A Review of: Sukovic, S. (2009). References to e-texts in academic publications. Journal of Documentation, 65(6), 997-1015.

Objective – To explore the role of electronic texts (e-texts) in the research and citation practices of scholars in the humanities. Design – A mixed-methods approach, employing a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods extended by semi-structured interviews. Setting – Six universities in Australia and one university in the United States. Subjects – Sixteen humanities scholars participated in the study, including nine historians and seven literary scholars. Methods – The study had two stages. The first stage included in-depth, semi-structured interviews, examination of participants’ manuscripts and published works, and evaluation of some e-texts mentioned during interviews. The second stage involved detailed data gathering from a group of four participants selected from the participants in stage one, followed by a final interview. Data were collected throughout 2005 and 2006. In total, the study investigated thirty research projects.In stage one, participants were asked to discuss one finished and one current research project in which e-texts were used as primary sources. Participants in the second stage were asked to record data about their interactions with e-texts during the current research project on forms and audiotapes. Researchers who completed forms and recorded comments were asked to discuss their view of e-texts in the research process. The interviews and tapes with comments were transcribed and coded to protect participants’ anonymity and strengthen the interpretive validity of the study.Data were analyzed by adopting a hermeneutical approach. The study results do not have any statistical significance and the findings cannot be generalized beyond the study data. Main Results – Participants in this study used a wide variety of e-texts for their research, but seldom included citations to these electronic sources in their published work. E-texts included digitized materials from libraries, archives, and private collections as well as ‘electronically born’ documents, works of art and popular culture artifacts. Of the 22 works resulting from the research projects examined during the study period, half did not cite e-texts as primary materials. The 11 works that made at least one reference to an e-text included 4 works in which the only reference was to e-texts created by the actual author. In total, only 7 works referred to e-texts created by outside authors. These 7 final works were written by 5 participants, representing 31 percent of the total number of study participants.Analysis of the participants’ citation practices revealed that