# Allowing a package to be cited

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522>\
**Category:** Offtopic\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [December 23, 2021, 10:08am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522 "2021-12-23T10:08:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rikh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/rikh/32/204104_2.png) [@rikh](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rikh)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2021, 10:08am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522/1 "2021-12-23T10:08:44Z")

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Any thoughts here on what are currently the best options to allow people to cite a package that you have created?

I know of

## Zenodo

**Pros**  
Easy and also stores the code.

**Cons**  
Is mostly ignored by Google Scholar.

## Preprint repository such as arXiv

**Pros**  
Reasonably easy

**Cons**  
Need to write a ~~LaTeX document~~ LaTeX, HTML or PDF document.

## Peer-reviewed publication

**Pros**  
Looks nice

**Cons**  
Takes long

## Book

Obvious pro’s and con’s. I mention this because, for example, ggplot2 does this.

EDIT: Related article happened to be posted on Slack just now by Mathieu Besançon: [Software Must be Recognised as an Important Output of Scholarly Research | International Journal of Digital Curation](https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v16i1.745).

EDIT2: There is also [https://f1000research.com/](https://f1000research.com/)

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**Author:** ![e3c6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e79b87/32.png) [@e3c6](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/e3c6)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2021, 11:02am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522/2 "2021-12-23T11:02:43Z")

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Can’t you just cite the Github repo?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rikh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/rikh/32/204104_2.png) [@rikh](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rikh)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2021, 11:09am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522/3 "2021-12-23T11:09:06Z")

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In our department, people who are editors and reviewers don’t like that. A software package appears more legitimate if it has a “real” publication.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zdenek\_hurak](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/zdenek_hurak/32/53118_2.png) [@zdenek\_hurak](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/zdenek_hurak)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2021, 11:44am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522/4 "2021-12-23T11:44:12Z")

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Shouldn’t the original question be changed to “Where to publish a paper about a software package?” then?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vavrines](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vavrines/32/8024_2.png) [@vavrines](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vavrines)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2021, 1:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522/5 "2021-12-23T13:00:12Z")

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I would say that a short open source journal paper is a pretty good choice for this topic.  
Available on google scholar, writing markdown is enough, and takes relatively short.  
David Sanders gave a [talk](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=david+sanders+joss) to introduce the journal of open source software.

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**Author:** ![mbesancon](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbesancon/32/6528_2.png) [@mbesancon](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbesancon)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2021, 1:15pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522/6 "2021-12-23T13:15:43Z")

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There is an interesting discussion on and around this topic here:  
[http://www.ijdc.net/article/view/745](http://www.ijdc.net/article/view/745)  
“Software Must be Recognised as an Important Output of Scholarly Research”

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2021, 3:34pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522/7 "2021-12-23T15:34:44Z")

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JOSS? [https://joss.theoj.org/](https://joss.theoj.org/)  
The LaTeX document required can be fairly brief.

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**Author:** ![jbytecode](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jbytecode/32/17719_2.png) [@jbytecode](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jbytecode)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2021, 4:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522/8 "2021-12-23T16:14:05Z")

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Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) has some benefits including

- Relatively short review times
- An academic journal
- Indexed by Google Scholar
- Interactive review process
- Developer friendly, on GitHub
- Markdown with LaTeX features

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![apo383](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/apo383/32/11272_2.png) [@apo383](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/apo383)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2021, 5:23pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/allowing-a-package-to-be-cited/73522/9 "2021-12-23T17:23:50Z")

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> [@rikh](#):
>
> **arXiv**  
> …  
> Need to write a LaTeX document

ArXiv _accepts_ but does not _require_ LaTeX. You can submit pdf or even html.