Referencing practices in physical geography: How well do we cite what we write?
Open accessAbstract
Accurate citation practices are important, from both an ethical and a scientific point of view. Using an easily reproducible, previously published method, we assess citation accuracy in 120 articles published in the first half of 2011 and listed under ‘Physical Geography’ in Thomson Reuters’ ISI Web of Knowledge Science Citation Index. Our results indicate that at least 19% of citations in physical geography do not provide clear support for the statements they are meant to support. These results are in line with previously published findings for ‘field-orientated’ sciences. We propose that both authors and editors help remedy this problem, by employing more rigorous writing and editing practices.
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A similar picture emerges from studies in marine biology, geography, and veterinary medicine.
“A similar picture emerges from studies in the fields of marine biology (Todd et al., 2010), geography (Haussmann et al., 2013), and veterinary medicine (Hinchcliff et al., 1993).”
From Quotation accuracy in medical journal articles—a systematic review and meta-analysis (2015) · cites this paper as Haussmann et al., 2013
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- Authors
- Haussmann, N. S., McIntyre, T., Bumby, A. J., & Loubser, M. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Pretoria (ZA)
- Corresponding author
- Haussmann, Natalie Suzette
- Venue
- Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2013-03-27
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 543-549
- ISSN
- 0309-1333 (ISSN-L)
- 1477-0296
- OpenAlex
- W2047648336
- Cited by
- 20
- References
- 27
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 3 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 1.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- Progress in Physical Geography Earth and Environment (publishedVersion)
- UpSpace Institutional Repository (University of Pretoria) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Pretoria
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Academic Writing and Publishing
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Keywords
- citation accuracy, physical geography, scientific integrity, editorial practice, academic writing, ISI Web of Knowledge
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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.
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