Does how I got my understanding of an article need to be cited? Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I just want to make sure that I’m taking the appropriate steps; I’m a student in University, and I write a lot of essays/reviews throughout the year. I like taking breaks and reading fictional stories to relax, but of course my brain sort of travels a lot to various different places, which includes school related tasks. I wanted to take a break from trying to understand one particular article that I was reviewing, and I only fully realized how the article’s thesis related to its conclusion while I was in the middle of reading one story (I had stopped to process it and I was about to go back into it again). However, it wouldn’t make sense to reference the story in my review, since I didn’t take any information from it, correct?
Definitely no. I think you know this, but for the benefit of future readers of this post: The purpose of a citation is not to provide a diary of the author's thought process, but rather to acknowledge the prior work done before yours and trace the logic and evidence from which your work follows. It helps no one to know what story you were reading, or whether you had a particularly nice breakfast that stimulated your thoughts. Save it for your blog or your memoirs.