citing a package?

Dear Martin,

I'd suggest you check the "DESCRIPTION" file and ask the author(s) of the 
package (e.g., a package might be related to a tech report which might, now, 
be in press, or whatever).

Best,

R.

How do I cite a package (not R itself - I know how to do that)? Any
thoughts or links?
Many thanks in advance?
Hank Stevens

Dr. Martin Henry H. Stevens, Assistant Professor
338 Pearson Hall
Botany Department
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056

Office: (513) 529-4206
Lab: (513) 529-4262
FAX: (513) 529-4243
http://www.cas.muohio.edu/botany/bot/henry.html
http://www.muohio.edu/ecology/
http://www.muohio.edu/botany/

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Hi
As far I'm concern the package author should tell you that.
Some packages have an article about them in the R-NEWS and this is a
possible way to cite them.
Otherwise we are left with the reference to the contributed packages
session of the CRAN web-site.

R has the citation() function and inspired by this
we create the functions cite.geoR() and cite.geoRglm() the packages geoR
and geoRglm.

Would it be an idea having some global standard, including this a a
requirement for the packages (?)

P.J.

How do I cite a package (not R itself - I know how to do that)? Any
thoughts or links?
Many thanks in advance?
Hank Stevens

Dr. Martin Henry H. Stevens, Assistant Professor
338 Pearson Hall
Botany Department
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056

Office: (513) 529-4206
Lab: (513) 529-4262
FAX: (513) 529-4243
http://www.cas.muohio.edu/botany/bot/henry.html
http://www.muohio.edu/ecology/
http://www.muohio.edu/botany/

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How do I cite a package (not R itself - I know how to do that)? Any 
thoughts or links?
Many thanks in advance?

I think it is the duty of a package author to write a citable paper, if
he thinks that such is needed. It could be useful to have this kind of
information easily available in the package, so that you do not have to
ask the authors how to cite their package. A natural looking place for
this kind of information is the package DESCRIPTION. However, there is
no standard entry for citation there. Now it seems that some packages
have a hint to citing (for instance, MASS: "Functions and datasets to
support Venables and Ripley, 'Modern Applied Statistics with S' (4th
edition)"), while some book-backed packages have no pointers to the book
(nlme, for instance). However, all CRAN packages have a pdf file of the
package documentation in CRAN. If citing URL is allowed in the journal,
this is a place to point.

cheers, jari oksanen

J.Oksanen, Oulu, Finland.
"Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could
only have originated in California." E. Dijkstra

Dear Martin,

I'd suggest you check the "DESCRIPTION" file and ask the author(s) of the
package (e.g., a package might be related to a tech report which might, now,
be in press, or whatever).

The posted suggestions seem to be that you don't cite the package, you
cite something else vaguely related to it instead.  This violates both the
purpose of a citation (a link to the original source) and the principle
(which I hope R users support) that software is publishable in itself, not
just as an appendage to text.

Most citation styles give rules for citing software and rules for citing
URIs.  Even when the package author has been completely unhelpful in
constructing a package title you can still put together a perfectly
reasonable citation, eg,

Lumley T (2003) Rmeta version 2.10. R package. http://cran.r-project.org

Some publishers might want a download date, or an explicit statement that
it is software (eg to make searching easier).

	-thomas

While the idea of writing a citable paper is great and 
appropriate, I think the word "duty" is too strong.  Competent 
professionals can still make valuable contributions to the R Project 
without this kind of external publication. 

      In academia, at least in the US, professors are paid in part to 
publish. Outside of academia, anyone who wishes to publish has much less 
support for doing so, and is often actively discouraged by intellectual 
property clauses in employment contracts that require internal reviews 
by people with little understanding of how "new knowledge" is created. 

      We should all be thankful for the contributions made to R by those 
who can NOT even get credit for it in an annual performance review.  
Their contributions should be judged on utility to other R users, not on 
whether it is converted into a separate publication. 

      just my humble opinion. 
      spencer graves

On Mon, 2004-02-09 at 16:21, Martin Henry H. Stevens wrote:
 

How do I cite a package (not R itself - I know how to do that)? Any 
thoughts or links?
Many thanks in advance?
   

I think it is the duty of a package author to write a citable paper, if
he thinks that such is needed. It could be useful to have this kind of
information easily available in the package, so that you do not have to
ask the authors how to cite their package. A natural looking place for
this kind of information is the package DESCRIPTION. However, there is
no standard entry for citation there. Now it seems that some packages
have a hint to citing (for instance, MASS: "Functions and datasets to
support Venables and Ripley, 'Modern Applied Statistics with S' (4th
edition)"), while some book-backed packages have no pointers to the book
(nlme, for instance). However, all CRAN packages have a pdf file of the
package documentation in CRAN. If citing URL is allowed in the journal,
this is a place to point.

cheers, jari oksanen 
 

I faced this problem recently when documenting the AlgDesign package. It 
contains some stuff the isn't in the literature, so I added a citation 
statement in the AUTHOR section of each function. Even after the 
material is published, I think a citation to a working "model" is quite 
appropriate.

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Ramon Diaz-Uriarte wrote:

Dear Martin,

I'd suggest you check the "DESCRIPTION" file and ask the author(s) of the
package (e.g., a package might be related to a tech report which might, now,
be in press, or whatever).

The posted suggestions seem to be that you don't cite the package, you
cite something else vaguely related to it instead.  This violates both the
purpose of a citation (a link to the original source) and the principle
(which I hope R users support) that software is publishable in itself, not
just as an appendage to text.

Most citation styles give rules for citing software and rules for citing
URIs.  Even when the package author has been completely unhelpful in
constructing a package title you can still put together a perfectly
reasonable citation, eg,

Lumley T (2003) Rmeta version 2.10. R package. http://cran.r-project.org

Some publishers might want a download date, or an explicit statement that
it is software (eg to make searching easier).

	-thomas

______________________________________________
R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html

Bob Wheeler --- http://www.bobwheeler.com/
         ECHIP, Inc. ---
Randomness comes in bunches.

Thank you to all the contributors to my original post. It has been 
informative to me, and appears to have provoked a small but important 
discussion about how we perform our duties in our various capacities as 
creators, developers and users.
I like Thomas' suggestion,

eg,
Lumley T (2003) Rmeta version 2.10. R package. 
http://cran.r-project.org

in addition to citing papers or books that discuss details of use, 
e.g., citing Venalbles and Ripley (2002) Modern Applied Statistics with 
S, for the MASS package.

Thanks again,
Hank Stevens

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Ramon Diaz-Uriarte wrote:

Dear Martin,

I'd suggest you check the "DESCRIPTION" file and ask the author(s) of 
the
package (e.g., a package might be related to a tech report which 
might, now,
be in press, or whatever).

The posted suggestions seem to be that you don't cite the package, you
cite something else vaguely related to it instead.  This violates both 
the
purpose of a citation (a link to the original source) and the principle
(which I hope R users support) that software is publishable in itself, 
not
just as an appendage to text.

Most citation styles give rules for citing software and rules for 
citing
URIs.  Even when the package author has been completely unhelpful in
constructing a package title you can still put together a perfectly
reasonable citation, eg,

Lumley T (2003) Rmeta version 2.10. R package. 
http://cran.r-project.org

Some publishers might want a download date, or an explicit statement 
that
it is software (eg to make searching easier).

	-thomas

Dr. Martin Henry H. Stevens, Assistant Professor
338 Pearson Hall
Botany Department
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056

Office: (513) 529-4206
Lab: (513) 529-4262
FAX: (513) 529-4243
http://www.cas.muohio.edu/botany/bot/henry.html
http://www.muohio.edu/ecology/
http://www.muohio.edu/botany/

I had a reviewer request a citation for a package that I had neglected to
cite. I followed a similar format to that suggested by Thomas Lumley and
also referenced a related book by the package's author. The editor thought
it was nifty.

My two cents.

-Andy