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When someone cites but (woefully) misrepresents your work?

In our new “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

Happily, someone cited my paper. Unhappily, they attributed to me a view which is the diametrical opposite of what I (and a very well-known, major international figure in philosophy of science on whose view I was elaborating) claimed. They made claims in the form of “Contra Scholars X and Y, I argue z.” Nothing in their argument rides on it, but I defended the very kind of framework they were advocating while they positioned themselves as doing the contrary. Their paper is in a top philosophy of science journal. What should I do?

I suppose it might be possible to write the editors requesting a correction (erratum). But I’ve never encountered this kind of situation, so I don’t know! Sadly, I suspect it’s likely to become more common in the age of AI, as (or so it seems) more and more researchers offload things like literature reviews to bots. So, it may be increasingly important to be on the lookout for this stuff and correct it.

What do readers think? Any helpful insights or experiences to share?

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16 responses to “When someone cites but (woefully) misrepresents your work?”

  1. Anonymous

    I would contact the editor and maybe the author, too.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous

    Some journals still publish “Notes.” If the misrepresentation is important enough, you could do a short write up, explain your view, explain the error, and why it all is important as a Note. Or do the same as a short article for journals with lower / no minimum word count.

    Reply
  3. Michel

    I think all you can do, really, is write a reply paper.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    I doubt a journal would publish an erratum. You could publish a reply piece, but if your article is merely mentioned, then I doubt the journal would be interested. You can certainly contact the author. But I would alert them in a matter of fact way, rather than in a confrontational way. Have you ever met the author before? If you know something about their personality, that might provide insight into how they will likely respond. In the end, if you do contact the author, the net result will probably be that they never look at any of your work again (and thus never cite it again). But I doubt that your reputation will be harmed. Davd Hull once said to me, “the only thing worse than being cited incorrectly is not being cited”

    Reply
  5. Anonymous

    *worriedly awaiting an email*

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      This is funny, because it’s true. this situation arises often, unfortunately. It may not worth the effort.

      Reply
    2. Anonymous

      So true!

      I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I understand OP’s concern. On the other hand, isn’t this just an unavoidable part of academia? I even took a course in graduate school showing how some 20th century big-name philosophers basically talked past each other, attributing views to people who actually did not hold them.

      Reply
  6. Anonymous

    I’ve seen this happen sometimes. You can – if you want, send an email (a polite one!) to the person who misrepresented your view, that way, at least, they might not do so in subsequent articles…

    Reply
  7. Anonymous

    Turn it into a vendetta. Spend the rest of your career only critiquing (and badly misrepresenting!) their work!

    Reply
  8. Anonymous

    i think this is just one of those annoying things most of us have had happen. The received response is to complain about to your friends and colleagues, who will react with sympathetic outrage, and then for you to privately deeply resent the person for the rest of your career, and to get briefly enraged every few months, for the rest of your life, when something reminds you of it again. hope that helps

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      An analogous situation is when someone oddly exaggerates the problem of your position or argument with a combination of misrepresentation and unnecessarily harsh language. It’s awkward when they send you the insulting paper for feedback not aware of how it looks to you… In this case I do feel resentment but cannot express it professionally because the person is much more junior

      Reply
    2. Anonymous

      This is so hilarious but true.

      Reply
  9. Hermias

    Write a paper about how this is a form of epistemic injustice (severe shortage of these papers right now)

    Reply
  10. Anonymous

    I guess in the ideal world I’d welcome a function in academic journals akin to Kindle’s Popular Highlights, that is, a function that allows you to see others’ highlights and brief reactions to phrases, sentences, and even paragraphs. The use of it should be highly restrained (perhaps even gatekept in terms of academic credentials) and routinely moderated. I see no practical way to do it nor any incentive for the publishers to add such a function. But cases exactly like this, and occasional sight of plain non sequiturs still make me want such a function. Many such issues are marginal and not worth writing a rebuttal article.

    Reply
    1. Mahmoud Jalloh

      Philosophy of Physics seems to have this function (I assume it is just an LSE Press default). See “Annotations and Comments” to the right of my article here: https://philosophyofphysics.lse.ac.uk/articles/10.31389/pop.288 I don’t know of anyone using this yet. I generally read articles as pdfs and only recently noticed this myself. There is also PubPeer, which is a browser overlay on article pages. Though I don’t think it quite meets your moderation constraints.

      Reply
      1. Anonymous

        That’s fantastic!

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