Two weeks ago Greenpeace launched their “Caught Red-Handed” campaign with a report of the same name. The issuance of the report was supported by a simultaneous social media campaign against Nestlé. These events were well-documented in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media. I summarized the situation in my blog post titled “The Kit Kat Incident and an Abuse of Power,” and you may go to that article for a synopsis if you are unfamiliar with this incident.
The subject of today’s post is the report itself, “Caught Red-Handed,” or rather the research integrity thereof. If you go to the report, which you may do by clicking here, and turn to page 13 (page 8 on the PDF version) you will see Greenpeace’s “Sources of Evidence” page. Or, as it would be more commonly called, the Bibliography. On this page of listed sources, Greenpeace shows a total of 73 sources. If you read through those sources, you will find that fully 22 of those sources are from Greenpeace documents or files. This means that 30% of the total sources used in this report were internal, and not of a diversified and external nature.
When I attended graduate school, I was instructed that, in performing research, a researcher should not use their own work as references in a research paper. And if doing so was absolutely, positively necessary, then reference to that researcher’s own work should be employed very, very sparingly. The reason against a researcher not using their own research in subsequent papers is obvious. The more diversified research sourcing is, the stronger is the research argument. “In-bred” references only weaken a case.
Is 30% a “sparing” employment of internal sourcing? Does 30% internal sourcing in “Caught Red-Handed” weaken the study’s argument? I suppose that depends on your point of view. My view is that 30% internal sourcing is highly excessive, and seeing that high of a percentage in this Greenpeace report makes me call into question the integrity of their research and, consequently, the validity of the Greenpeace argument presented in “Caught Red-Handed.”
Is this a case of being “caught red-handed” in an issue of reliable and fair research?
You know my opinion; you’re certainly entitled to yours.
