Journal of dental research
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Previous studies have examined the bibliographic accuracy of citations in medical journals. The purpose of this study was to assess reference accuracy in five national dental journals. One hundred references were randomly selected from the March, 1987, issue of each of five dental journals (a total of 500 references). ⋯ Types of minor errors ranked as follows: minor article title errors, 86 (35%); minor author errors, 61 (25%); and minor citation errors, 26 (10%). Types of major errors were ranked as follows: incorrect journal citation, 32 (13%); "unable to verify", 25 (10%); incorrect author, 10 (4%); and incorrect article title, 8 (3%). The results of this survey showed that nearly half of the references reviewed were inaccurate.