How does one choose which articles to cite for a very broad sentence? For example, take the sentence: &quot;Gaussians are widely used in mathematics &amp; statistics&quot;.
At this point there probably tens of thousands of papers that use Gaussian functions in some way (that's not even counting the papers in other fields like the social sciences that make use of Gaussians). It's impractical to cite them all. The sentence still calls for at least some citations though. How does one choose which papers to cite?
Either none at all if you can assume that the most likely audience of your publication is aware of that as if it was a basic fact of life.
Or recent reviews that provide a wide overview of Gaussians used in mathematics and/or statistics.
I searched for TITLE: (Gaussian) AND DOCUMENT TYPES: (Review) AND YEAR PUBLISHED: (2015-2021) in Web of Science. The query led to 56 results, many of which have accrued considerable citations and thematize mathematical or statistical issues. Perhaps you could do a similar search and pick some suitable papers to cite.