References credit the work of others and let readers find your sources. A mistake here, such as a citation with no reference, a different year or a broken DOI, undermines the credibility of the whole article. In medical journals, about one in four citations does not fully support what is attributed to it (Jergas & Baethge, 2015).
The parts of a reference
García, M. A., & López, S.Authors (2022).Year Academic stress in university students.Title Journal of Psychology,Journal 54(2),Volume and issue 112–124.Pages https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxDOI
Basic rules
- Full correspondence. Every citation in the text is in the list and every reference in the list is cited in the text, with the same authors and year.
- Alphabetical order by the first author’s surname, with a hanging indent.
- DOI as a link (https://doi.org/…) whenever one exists.
- Original sources. Cite what you read. A reference manager such as Zotero or Mendeley prevents most formatting errors.
Before and after
| Weak version | Problem | Improved version |
|---|---|---|
| (García, López, & Pérez, 2022), every time | With three or more authors, et al. is used from the first citation | (García et al., 2022) |
| According to Freud (1920), as cited in López (2021)… | Secondary citation of a source you did not read | Read and cite the original source, or cite only the one you read |
| doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.07.006 | Outdated DOI format | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2015.07.006 |
What each journal decides. The citation style (APA, Vancouver, IEEE or another), the maximum number of references and whether a share of recent sources is required change from one journal or conference to another. Check their author guidelines.
Before you call it done
- Is every citation in the list and every reference cited in the text?
- Do authors and years match between citation and reference?
- Is the list in alphabetical order with a hanging indent?
- Does it include the DOI as a link when one exists?
- Is et al. used correctly for citations with three or more authors?
The Manuscript Diagnosis automatically compares in-text citations with the reference list, years, DOI format and alphabetical order.
References
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
Jergas, H., & Baethge, C. (2015). Quotation accuracy in medical journal articles—a systematic review and meta-analysis. PeerJ, 3, e1364. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1364