Exploration of citation and decription questions of references

Zhou Jing; Guo Yuhui; Hou Weijuan; Tan Xiaoqin; Gao Yanhua; Wang Weimin

doi:10.11850/j.issn.1009-122X.2016.10.014

Abstract：Objective To explore the citation and description of references in scientific and technical journals and propose the corresponding strategies. Methods The original manuscripts were collected from Chinese Journal of Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery from 2010 to 2014 years, and 100 manuscripts were sampled randomly including 49 manuscripts of clinical research, 13 of experience communication, 9 of experimental research, 16 of case report and 13 of review according to the column. CNKI, Wanfang and Pubmed databases were used to check the 1189 bibliographic references. The reference citation and description questions were analyzed retrospectively according to the Chinese national standard GB/T 7714-2005 the description rules of bibliographic references and other stanards. The sum, publication period and languages of references in all types of manuscripts were counted and analyzed statistically. Results The average citation quantity of manuscripts of review, experimental research, case report, clinical research and experience commication was 27.3,11.4,10.9,9.9,5.5 references per article respectively. Of 1189 references, 589 (49.5%) were publicated within recent 5 years and 600 (50.5%) before 5 years. There were 367 Chinese references and 822 foreign references. The ratios of foreign literatures were≥50%in all types of manscripts. The citation problems included having description but no citation, irrelevant citation, undue citation and citation from a secondary source. The description problems included the label format errors in the main body of paper and description format errors in bibliographic references. Conclusions The references are necessary for academic papers. The proper and standardized citation is important for assurance of paper quality, which needs the endeavour of authors, editors and reviewers.