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Abstract
Articles in the academic literature are followed by a list of references, which serve a number of scholarly functions. Unfortunately, many of these citations are not accurate. Errors which hinder or prevent retrieval of a written work create problems for those searching for the work and can have negative implications for those authors whose names are misspelled. In this study, the September 1980 and 1999 issues of Archives of General Psychiatry and the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry were selected for comparison. Results of the study were mixed: the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry lowered its error rate significantly over the study period; rates in Archives of General Psychiatry rose slightly, despite the availability of reference management software. In 1980 the rate in AJP was lower than JCP; in 1999 the situation was reversed. The element of the citation with the highest error rate was the article title, and the lowest was the journal title.
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