Literature review number of citations requirment năm 2024

There is no universal standard or rule for the number of references that should appear in a research paper. The number of references depends on several factors, chiefly the study discipline and specific topic, the article type and the target journal’s preferences.

Reference number by study discipline and niche

• Discipline: The average number of references per article has been observed to be higher for social sciences, physics and ecology than for medical sciences.
• Niche: If you are working on a highly researched topic, you might end up having a lot of references. However, within a broad field, a niche or narrow subdiscipline or a very new and original idea, say ‘indigenous languages of the Mascarene Islands’, might have very few pre-existing studies, so you may not have very many studies to cite.

Reference number by article type

• Reviews: Review articles, systematic reviews and meta-analyses tend to have long reference lists because, by definition, such studies critically assess the data from existing studies.
• Reports: Case reports or other types of short reports cite very few references because the primary focus is the authors’ current findings.
• Original: An original article would have a reference number between that of review articles and short reports.

Reference number by journal

Some journals might have restrictions on the maximum number of references, further contingent on article type and total word count. For example, references might be capped at three [e.g. for a ‘Disease Note’ article in the Journal of Plant Pathology] or could be as high as 100 [e.g. for reviews in PLOS Pathogens]. In Nature, original articles typically have 30–50 references.

Our recommendation: Always consult the journal’s author guidelines for specific limits, if any. Where not specified, skim recently published articles in that journal for a rough estimate.

Tips to help you optimise your reference list

Not every paper you might have read during the literature review needs to be included. To strike the right balance between too many or too few, keep the following key points in mind when compiling your references.

1. Scan academic journals in your field

Study the trends of journals in your discipline, with a focus on the article type you have in mind. Get a rough idea of the number of references typically listed by checking how many references other authors have included in their papers.

2. Strike a balance between retaining and removing

Are some of your statements supported by a long list of references? Try to sift through the noise and retain only those that strongly support the statement and are not repetitive. For example, among several studies that have used the same genetic analysis approach in different species, choose the one most relevant to your study.

‘Responsible citation’ requires that you consult and understand the content of a paper before choosing to cite it, rather than including it just because others have cited it. In short…

• Retain references if they are truly relevant to your research.
• Remove references if you have not read the cited article fully.

Summary

There is no standard number of references for an article. However, the following pointers should help you work towards an optimal number.

• Keep track of general trends for specific article types by examining the most recent relevant publications.
• When a limit is prescribed, treat it as sacrosanct; do not exceed it.
• When no limit is indicated, cite an adequate number required for your paper.

With practice, you will learn to strike the perfect balance of not too many and not too few!

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Junior researchers frequently wonder how many references should be included in their research papers. The common response? “As many as you need.” What exactly does that mean? While we admit there are very few hard-set rules regarding this issue, in this article, we will try to provide more concrete guidelines that will help you assess whether you have enough references in your paper.

Before we do so, let us briefly explain why references matter and whether the number of references you include can project certain perceptions about the quality of your work. There is such a thing as having too many or too few.

Why are research paper references and citations necessary?

References show that you have carefully reviewed the relevant literature and are now contributing something novel to the academic community. You establish authority and credibility when you can critically assess other literature and distinguish your findings from previous works [if any exist]. We emphasize “critically assess” in the last sentence because references are only as good as you apply them to your research. Therefore, the famous adage “quality over quantity” is the key to deciding how many references are sufficient.

Likewise, citing your references within the research paper itself [in the form of academic citations] is crucial in any academic work that makes assertations based on external studies. Failing to cite your sources can result in plagiarism, which even if accidental can still have some devastating consequences for academic researchers hoping to publish their work or finish graduate school.

Number of Sources Used Can Impact Perceptions of Quality

We would be remiss if we didn’t tell you that being at either extreme [having too few or too many references] can reflect poorly on your intellectual aptitude and your study’s validity. Here’s why:

• If you don’t have enough references, particularly on a topic familiar to a wide audience, readers may think that you haven’t done enough research into existing literature. Surely someone else has thought about related topics or used similar techniques. If you’re sloppy in conducting your diligence, readers will wonder whether your paper is worth reading. What’s novel and valuable about your paper? Were you just as sloppy with conducting your study? The answers to these questions need to be evident.
• Additionally, readers might be concerned that you may have plagiarized by failing to properly cite information. Unless you’re John Nash, who cited only two texts in his seminal 26-page PhD thesis [one of which was to his prior work], ensure that you’ve properly researched the relevant papers and included appropriate citations! Especially, make sure that you have found, read, and included all the latest publications on your topic before finalizing and submitting your own paper—if the drafting process took some time, new literature might have come out in the meantime, and you don’t want to give the editor the impression that you are not on top of the newest developments.
• If you have too many references, readers may wonder if you did any original research at all. Unless you’re writing a literature review, your paper’s primary focus should be on your investigation and findings. Don’t bury your hard work under strings of citations and discussion regarding other works. Show your readers what you’ve discovered and how the new information you present fits into or departs from the academic community’s current understanding of your topic.

Additionally, let us highlight the difference between the number of references versus citations. References are the source materials; therefore, each reference should be listed only once in your references section. Citations are meant to identify the source of the information you use in your paper. You can cite a reference multiple times. Therefore, the number of citations you have is typically larger than the number of references an average paper includes. The opposite situation should never happen!

Key Factors Influencing the Number of References You Use

The following are some of the many factors that may influence the number of references you use:

1. The number of references required for a paper will depend largely on your work’s purpose. For example, literature and systematic reviews are surveys of existing studies. Therefore, their reference lists will be more exhaustive than those of research papers whose primary focus is the current authors’ findings. Indeed, if you examine many journals’ author guidelines, you’ll note that journals have a higher maximum reference limit for review articles than original research papers.
2. The length of your reference list will also depend on your research paper’s subject matter. For example, if you are writing about a field that is less studied [such as a subfield of neuroparasitology] you may discover that there aren’t many papers to cite. Similarly, newer fields will have fewer published papers that can be referenced. If you find yourself in this situation, review the references used by relevant current literature and see if you can expand your research, and thus your reference list, with valuable content from there.
3. Another factor will be your institution or journal’s requirements. If you are preparing a dissertation or thesis, double-check your department’s requirements. While rare, they may have specific limits. More commonly, journals restrict the number of references due to printing constraints.
4. It may happen that you don’t have access to certain literature that could have served as a reference. In such a situation, you may wish to look for an institution that may be able to provide you access to that literature for the purposes of reviewing the content or contact one of the authors directly and ask for a copy.
5. Given that more papers are being published than ever before in most fields, it is likely that reference lists will grow longer simply because there are more data and discussions of existing data available to cite. Keep track of changes to the size of reference lists in publications related to your field.
6. Finally, a paper’s length bears some correlation to the number of references.

So how many references should be included?

Below, we provide tips on how to decide if you have enough resources. We also provide some general reminders on how to effectively use references. After all, references are meant to enhance your paper while still maintaining your research as the focal point.

Use academic journals as a guide

• One way to gauge how many references you should have is to survey academic journals for your article type in your field. Review their author guidelines for limits on the number of references for your article type, and make sure your reference list complies with those journal restrictions.
• Read recent articles relevant to your topic; check how many references other authors have included in their papers for the same article type as yours, and how frequently those works were cited per page.
• Keep in mind that the above methods will give you an estimate of how many references you should include overall but will not tell you how many citations you’ll need per page. The latter is impossible to state simply because certain sections may have no citations at all [the results section, for example].

Statistics regarding the number of references and citations

To give you a general idea, the following are some estimates from a couple of studies that examined the citation characteristics of articles published in various disciplines.

According to Milojević’s study encompassing research in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, robotics, ecology, and economics, the highest and average number of references per article page were as follows:

• Ecology: highest, ~58; average reference per page, 6;
• Math and robotics: highest, ~28; average reference per page, 1 but