Publication details
Přínosy standardizace citačních pokynů pro české lékařské časopisy
| Title in English | The Benefits of Standardization of Citation Rules for Czech Medical Journals |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | ITlib |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | |
| Field | Documentation, library studies, information management |
| Keywords | bibliographic references;citation analysis;citation styles;medical journals;standardization |
| Attached files | |
| Description | For ten years authors writing for scientific journals have repeatedly made various errors in bibliographic references. One of the reasons is the diversity of citation guidelines in journals. An analysis of citation guidelines in Czech medical journals, in which authors from Czech scientific institutions published during the years 2011 – 2014, found that this diversity in styles also affects these periodicals. Of the 304 identified journals, 64 follow NLM style and 50 of them follow ISO 690, both in their original and modified or outdated variants. 10 of them use APA style, 2 of them use IEEE style and another 2 follow JAMA style, while the remaining 102 journals do not specify or publish their requirements on citation rules. The diversity of citation rules is generally very confusing for authors, who repeatedly have to learn the citation rules of each journal and, as a result, make errors in their bibliographic references. This situation means Czech medical journals risk a reduction in their prestige and quality as these errors may cause Czech papers to appear underrepresented in Web of Science and Scopus citation databases. These citation errors may also suggest a lack of thoroughness on the part of the author, errors which could occur not only when quoting, but also when writing other parts of an article or in conducting research. One solution to this predicament is the use of a standardized style NLM resulting from an agreement between editors of prestigious biomedical journals and a thorough check of all or a randomly selected sample of the bibliographic references in each article. With regard to the financial costs of such a check, editors of Czech medical journals could share the cost of a professional checking of the bibliographic references. These steps would help improve the quality and prestige of journals as well as - in the case of those included in citation databases - their potential citation. |