Accuracy of references in four pediatric nursing journals
Abstract
Inaccurate references hinder retrieval of documents, may prevent researchers from examining all of the work by an author, and may result in authors not getting credit for their work. This study determines the number and types of errors in references in four widely read pediatric nursing journals. Of the 190 references examined, 79 of them contained an error, for an overall error rate of 41.6%. Major errors, which prevent the rapid retrieval of information, occurred in 28.9% of the references. Minor errors occurred at half the rate (13.7%) of major errors. Errors in the titles of articles, chapters, and books were the most common type of mistake followed by errors in authors' names.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
One of the most basic functions of a reference list is to give credit for the work of other authors.
“One of the most basic functions of a reference list is to give credit for the work of other authors (George and Robbins, 1994;Hinchcliff et al., 1993;Oermann et al., 2001;Taylor, 1998).”
From Reference accuracy of primary studies published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals: A scoping review (2024) · cites this paper as Oermann et al., 2001
Incorrect references can cost librarians time and result in delayed document delivery, and increased costs on a library's budget may eventually be passed on to authors or result in reduced resources, services, and staff.
“Incorrect references can cost librarians time and result in delayed document delivery, and the increased costs on a library's budget may eventually be passed on to authors or result in reduced resources, services, and staff (Oermann et al., 2001;Taylor, 1998).”
From Reference accuracy of primary studies published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals: A scoping review (2024) · cites this paper as Oermann et al., 2001
Accurate references are essential for librarians who assist authors with locating references through manual or digital searches and processing interlibrary loan requests.
“Accurate references are also essential for librarians who assist authors with locating references through manual or digital searches and processing interlibrary loan requests (Oermann et al., 2001;Taylor, 1998).”
From Reference accuracy of primary studies published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals: A scoping review (2024) · cites this paper as Oermann et al., 2001
In Oermann et al. (2001), 41.6% of verified references in four pediatric nursing journals contained at least one error.
“Unclear 41.6% Major: 28.9%.Minor: 13.7%”
From Reference accuracy of primary studies published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals: A scoping review (2024) · cites this paper as Oermann et al. (2001)
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 20 · Cited by 26
- Authors
- Oermann, M. H., Cummings, S. L., & Wilmes, N. A.
- Affiliations
- Wayne State University (US)
- ORCID
- Oermann, Marilyn H.
- Venue
- Journal of Pediatric Nursing
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2001-08
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 263-268
- ISSN
- 0882-5963 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2072020596
- Cited by
- 26
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2021: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 7.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Pediatric Nursing (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Academic Writing and Publishing
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Keywords
- citation errors, citation accuracy, bibliographic references, reference retrieval, author names, article titles
- MeSH terms
- Bibliographies as Topic, Humans, Pediatric Nursing, Periodicals as Topic, Publishing, Nursing Research, Bibliometrics, Information Storage and Retrieval
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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