REFERENCE AND QUOTATION ACCURACY IN THE MAJOR AND MINOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNALS
Kelly J Warren,1 Neal Bhatia,1 Winnie Teh,2
Matthew G Fleming,1 and Michael Lange2
Dept of Dermatology, Medical College of Wisconsin, 9200 West Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA; 2Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology, St Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, NY, USA
Objectives: References and quotations in the medical literature are often inaccurate. We conducted a retrospective, comparative review of the accuracy of references in the 4 major clinical infectious disease journals and 6 minor journals.
Design: A total of 240 references from the 4 major clinical infectious disease journals (Clinical Infectious Diseases, Journal of lnfectious Diseases, Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases, and Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal) and 142 references from 3 minor clinical infectious disease journals (Infections in Medicine, Infections in Urology, and the AIDS Reader) and 3 minor clinical specialty journals that publish articles on infectious diseases (Complications in Surgery, Pediatric Annals, and Complications in Orthopedics) were reviewed for citation and quotation errors. Citation errors were defined as major if they prevented the rapid identification of the original source. Minor citation errors were those that did not impede the rapid identification of the original source. Quotational errors were defined as major if the citation contradicted, was unrelated to, or did not support the authors' assertion. Minor quotational errors were those that, although inaccurate, generally supported the authors' claims or were those that cited a secondary source. All data were entered into a computerized database and analyzed with chi-square and nonparametric statistics. Reference accuracy rates for the major and minor journals were determined. Additionally, correlations were sought between accuracy of references and number of references cited, number of authors, country of origin of authors, language of authors, and impact factor of the journal in which the article was published.
Results: Of the examined references, citation errors were found in 26% from the major and 32% from the minor journals; quotation errors were found in 15% from the major and 20% from the minor journals. The combined error rate of references from the minor journals was significantly greater from that of the major journals (P=.059). For individual articles, there was a significant positive correlation between the total number of authors and the likelihood of a reference error (P=.019). There was also a significant negative correlation between the impact factor of the journal in which the article was published and the likelihood of a reference error (P<.001). There was a positive correlation between the total number of references and the likelihood of a reference error (P=.032). Neither the country of origin nor language of the authors correlated with the likelihood of a reference error.
Conclusions: The reference accuracy rate of infectious disease journals is similar to that reported in other specialty journals. The data support the hypothesis that references in the minor journals tend to be less accurate than references in major journals. The data also show that individual references from articles containing a large number of references are less likely to be accurate than references from articles with few references. Individual references from articles by a large number of authors are more likely to be accurate than references from articles by a small number of authors. A journal's impact factor is a reliable indicator of the overall accuracy of references within the journal.
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