title: Accuracy of references: comparison between two premier Pakistani medical journals.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To compare two premier Pakistani medical journals for errors in references of original articles published in the year 2008.
  
  
  METHODS
  All original articles of the Journal of Pakistan Medical Association and the Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan published in 2008 were included in the study. References pertaining to journals were included in the study, whereas references pertaining to other sources such as books internet articles, websites and newspapers were excluded. Errors were categorised into author error, article title error, journal title error, year of publication error, volume error and page number error. The data was analysed through SPSS 16.0.
  
  
  RESULTS
  References from 200 original articles (100 each from both journals) were evaluated. Only 19 (9.5%) articles were found to be free of error with no significant difference between the two journals. On evaluation of 3783 references, the overall reference error was found to be 1015 (26.8%): 531 (31%) in JPMA and 484 (23.4%) in JCPSP. The author error was the commonest error among these references (n = 490; 13%), followed by page error (n = 297; 7.9%), article title error (n = 222; 5.9%), and journal title error (n = 189; 5%). JCPSP had statistically significant more article errors, whereas JPMA had statistically significant more journal title and page errors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Reference errors constitute an avoidable but substantial lapse of medical literature. The magnitude of reference errors is much higher than expected.
authors.affiliation: Isra University, Hyderabad, Pakistan. abdulsamad@email.com
authors.forename: Abdul
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Samad
authors.forename: Tariq Wahab
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Khanzada
authors.forename: Basant
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Kamran Ahmed
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Malik
mesh_terms: D004282:Documentation / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D010154:Pakistan; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D011786:Quality Control