If they didn't they couldn't have used it and they wouldn't have needed a citation either.

The point is that the "because the investigators were unable to cite an unpublished work, I submitted it for publication at their request" justification doesn't make much sense. She could have just explained to them that no citation was needed for something so trivial.

> The point is that the "because the investigators were unable to cite an unpublished work, I submitted it for publication at their request" justification doesn't make much sense. She could have just explained to them that no citation was needed for something so trivial.

I can see how if you were unaware, and several colleagues in your field were unaware, it might be good to include some kind of external information about the thing. I can also see why you might not want to link to Wikipedia.

I do think writing a medical article about it for people to link to is silly. Surely if you wanted a citation, you could just cite a math textbook.

Well, yes, but if you need a citation for Gaussian elimination, the problem is yours, not anyone else's.