"I’ve started to pay close attention to how I tweet by making a concerted effort to see if the author of a given article, blog, etc. is on Twitter and then naming them after the URL. It just feels proper and professional, the way printed media would accredit sources. PLUS, I’ve gotten great follows as a result. Yes, people whose work you’ve attributed will actually take interest in following you. Common courtesy, really.

With all the debate over the accuracy, authenticity and overall professional lacuna of citizen journalism and crowdsourced factoids, attributing your tweets to a source would, in my mind, at least show some form of respect to that source (be it accurate or not): that it was not your own original thought/idea you are sharing. Does it matter if it’s accurate? Not really. But at least you’ve made it clear it’s not proprietary to you."