Citation Accuracy of Two Orthodontic and One Dental Research Journal

Objectives:  To determine the accuracy of the bibliographic citations of three national dental journals.  Methods:  We randomly sampled 100 references from three randomly selected 2006 issues of two orthodontic journals, Journal of Clinical Orthodontics (JCO) and American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics (AJODO) and the Journal of Dental Research (JDR) (total n=300).  Medline was used to verify the accuracy of the references and the references were classified as accurate or as containing major errors, minor errors, or as being unable to find.  Major errors were anything that hindered or prevented locating the article.  Minor errors were anything that was incorrect, but did not prevent locating the article.    Results:  Of all verified references 27% contained one or more errors.  The frequency of errors differed significantly among the three journals (chi square, p<0.001).  JDR contained the lowest error rate (12%), followed by JCO (25%) and AJODO (46%).  Of the total errors found, 16% were major errors.  AJODO contained the highest relative percent of major errors (23%), followed by JCO (17%), and JDR (8%).    The table displays the frequencies of some major errors found in each journal.