How many references are appropriate for an article?
How many for a communication?
Or a proposal?
My post-doc sends me a very nice paper that will be submitted as a full article with 16 references (Gasp!). I'm frustrated because the low # of references implies that they have only read 16 papers in the last 6 months or so. And I'm frustrated because part of my editing process will involve looking up references to support our findings. Yes, I'm a PI and should look up all these references anyways, but really... a post-doc can only find 16 citations???
Anyways, my preferences are 40+ for an article, 15+ for a communication, and 50-100 for a proposal.
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10 comments:
Ah, the fact that as PI you have to still do all the legwork... I hear ya. My postdoc presently is not too bad, but I still have to add about a 1/3 to 1/2 of refs every time. With grad students it's just terrible.
The number of refs you mentioned sounds about right, but I don't really ever predetermine how many, it just comes out like that. I have had shorter papers with 30-ish references and some longer ones with ~80. Proposals are always 150+. Letters/briefs are up to 20.
I just reviewed (negatively) a brief paper with 7 refs. Guys, I know you are pressed for space, but that doesn't excuse not reading/citing any literature (such as work of 2 groups that already did what you say is novel here)...
hmm, as someone who likes to find all the articles related to my topic at hand and who like to cite primary sources over reviews, I tend to have lots of references.
I know in my field, references are now included in the word limit...
I think it should have as many references as it needs to support the facts and ideas. Could it be that the paucity of citations in this manuscript is not because your postdoc hasn't read more papers, but because s/he doesn't know when it's appropriate to cite them in the text? Like, more of a writing problem than a reading problem?
Well, you could always tell the postdoc that that's not enough and that they should find another 30 references for the paper, before you'll consider submitting it. And give the postdoc a 2-weeks deadline (to speed up their reading).
EGF - This manuscript could easily have 50+ refs so I'm disappointed in 16...
I'm with EGF. My students (undergrads) come into my lab with no idea how or when to cite. As a result, they usually waaaaaay under-cite.
I hope your postdoc can learn from your corrections and start citing a more appropriate number of articles in the future!
Well, yeah, 15 does not sound like enough. But I don't think there should necessarily be a target number. There will be more if the paper is cross-disciplinary or there aren't good reviews to cite, fewer if the topic is narrow.
I still say that some people don't find it intuitive to know when they need to back up a statement when a reference, so you might need to give some examples of where the text needs refs. And totally give it back to the postdoc to do! You shouldn't have to do it yourself, and besides, how else will the posdtoc ever learn to do it right?
I hear ya! Mine has in fact read only 5-6 of the 50 papers I gave him. I often wonder how on earth did these people get their PhDs, and then I realize that many of my grad students will be the same if they became postdocs. After a certain point as a PI you simply have to give up and write the paper and figure out the right references yourself.
The conference that you and I went to recently (;)) had expert talks. These experts present results of 2-3 good students/postdocs they had in their groups of 15+ (rest are forgotten!). All we need is 1-2 good ones in our group of 6-10, and we are set. I know we are supposed to be teachers and should teach+mentor all students/postdocs equally. What do you do if some don't want to be mentored or taught? How do we keep our job and force our knowledge onto them? We can't!
Basically all you can do is vent, and fix the paper yourself.
Post-doc just sent back manuscript with 37 appropriate references. Just had to ask for them.
Unfortunately, he did not run spell check... see next post.
Different fields have different standards. And it is easy to learn/teach these standards. It may be a bit unfortunate that a PostDoc is not aware of such common knowledge, but it is an easy problem to solve. (:
Regarding the comment of "Anon - July 11, 2010 11:38 AM", especially "All we need is 1-2 good ones in our group of 6-10, and we are set.". Really? Are you serious?! Wow!!!
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