Abstract
Accuracy in references is essential to retrieve cited documents and to give authors credit for their work. The purpose of this study was to examine the number and types of reference errors in 3 general readership nursing journals: American Journal of Nursing, Nursing Outlook, and RN. Of the 130 references examined, 33 contained errors, for an overall error rate of 25%. Major errors, mistakes that could impede document retrieval, occurred in 19% of the references; most of these errors were mistakes in issue numbers or missing issue numbers, which are needed when the pages are not numbered consecutively across the volume. The journal with an in-house librarian who verifies the accuracy of references had few errors in citations. When authors are responsible for verifying the accuracy of their references, errors seem to be inevitable. Suggestions are included for avoiding errors in references.