The importance of authors ensuring referencing and page proofs are correct
Mike Calver · Pacific Conservation Biology · 2015
Given the importance of correct referencing for tracing ideas and data in the literature and for proper attribution of the contributions of others, I was surprised to read that errors in referencing in published papers are frequent and may be approaching 25% in the general field of environmental science (Lopresti 2010). Most serious are the cases where the reference supporting a claim does not actually make the statement attributed to it, disseminating misinformation (Wright and Armstrong2008;Toddetal.2010).Alsoseriousarecaseswhere an author has copied a citation and reference from another source rather than consulting the original, not realising that the source had made a referencing error or incorrect interpretation ofthethrustofthepaper.Thishasledtohighcitationsforpapers that do not exist (Dubin 2004), an example that delights those who despise the modern obsession with citation rates. Then there are cases that are just plain irritating when readers cannot locate a reference because it is missing or incorrect. Omitting a reference is easy if the entire paper is not checked thoroughly; references in captions of tables and figures are notorious for not appearing in reference lists. Bibliographic packages may help reduce errors, but they are not infallible and authors should manually check that every citation in the text, including captions, appears correctly in the reference list and vice versa. In addition, authors must check to see every citation and reference is given in the format of the particular journal. Although the frequency of errors was news to me, it is common knowledge to the editors of major databases. As recently as 2011, Scopus would not index books or book chapters other than those in a named series because, amongst other difficulties, the diversity of citation styles often made it difficulttodecideexactlywhattheauthorwasciting.Theonline