Original Research
Frontiers in Anesthesiology ·
Volume 5 - 2026 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fanes.2026.1868790
Citation and quotation accuracy in three anesthesia journals: a cross-sectional survey
- Anita Lukic1,2,3*corresponding author
- Parnia Khamooshi4
- Neil Patel5
- Arman Hemmat6
- Marta Modrić1
- Sadaf Mirkarimi7
- Krešimir Reiner8
- Kenneth D. Candido9
- Santhanam Suresh9
- Steven B. Edelstein9
- Vicko Gluncic10
- Ivan Krešimir Lukić3,11
- 1Department of Anesthesiology, Reanimatology, and Intensive Care Medicine, Varazdin General Hospital, Varazdin, Croatia
- 2Nursing Studies, University North, Varazdin, Croatia
- 3Nursing Studies, Bjelovar University of Applied Sciences, Bjelovar, Croatia
- 4Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Medicine and Critical Care, The University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States
- 5Department of Anesthesiology, Advocate Sherman Hospital, Elgin, IL, United States
- 6St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, Youngstown, OH, United States
- 7Department of Anesthesiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States
- 8Department of Anesthesiology and ICU, University Hospital Centre Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
- 9University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States
- 10Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Loyola University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, United States
- 11Medical School of Catholic University of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Citation and quotation errors are a known problem in the medical literature. However, quotation accuracy in anesthesiology has not been addressed before. We analyzed the final issue of 2017 of three anesthesiology journals: Anesthesia and Analgesia, Anesthesiology, and British Journal of Anaesthesia. Those issues included 122 manuscripts quoting 3,033 references. We randomly selected 729 references to journal articles or web-pages and retrieved 715 (or 98%). The overall rate of citation errors in journal articles was 16% (111 errors/697 checked journal articles), with 27% of the errors being major (e.g., publication year or first author's family name). The total number of quotation errors was 114 (or 16%), but most (68%) were major (the referenced article contradicted, failed to substantiate, or was unrelated to the authors’ assertions). Only 18 evaluated references were web-pages. In addition to three dead links, we were not able to evaluate seven of the remaining ones (registration required, or no indication where on the site to look for the exact piece of information). Comparing our results with previous publications, it is likely that the citation errors in anesthesiology were reduced over the past decades. However, the quotation error rate raises concerns: the rate is high and most of the errors are serious in nature. Joint efforts by all involved parties (authors, editors, and publishers) are called for, while the final solution will most likely be based on AI-guided tools. Moreover, more specific guidelines for citing web-pages should be implemented in the future.
Keywords
1 Introduction
Literature citations are an essential part of publications in science (1). As outlined by Hoffmann et al., citing serves several purposes: tradition of scholarship, history, utility, avoidance of duplication, establishing credentials, priority, and negotiating the ‘anxiety of influence’ (2). Given the importance of citations in scientific publications, as well as the role of literature review in scientific process (3), it is not surprising that the first concerns about the accuracy of quoting and/or citing were raised almost half a century ago. We emphasize that these concerns were first raised in a letter to the editor published in an anesthesiology journal (4). The first actual study on citing and quoting in the medical literature was published ten years later, confirming that the quality of referencing was not satisfactory: the original author was misquoted in 15% of cases, and citation errors occurred in 24% of the references (5).
Over the years, a number of research manuscripts followed, examining citation and quotation accuracy in both general (6, 7) and specialized medical journals (8–13). Anesthesiologists were quick to follow the seminal paper on citation and quotation accuracy by de Lacey (5), so the anesthesiology journals were initially the topic of a study by McLelan and of a subsequent series of publications in 1995 (14–21).
However, those early studies focused only on citation accuracy, while quotation accuracy, which has a more serious impact, remained unknown. In addition to assessing the quotation accuracy (the primary goal of this study) and providing new data on the citation accuracy, we were also motivated by two novel developments. First, the number of references to web sites has been increasing rapidly. For instance, the proportion of web referrals in the Annals of Emergency Medicine increased from 0.9% in the 2000 to 5.4% in the 2005 (22). Second, the appearance of ‘fake news’ led to a growing concern about reliability of medical information in general (23, 24), and those concerns are also relevant to the information presented in and disseminated by medical journals.
2 Materials and methods
Having the research goals in mind, we designed the following retrospective cross-sectional bibliographic analysis. Based on impact factor, our perception of the journals’ reputation in the field, as well as the free availability of their content online, we included the following three periodicals in our study: Anesthesia and Analgesia, Anesthesiology, and British Journal of Anaesthesia.
To determine how many references needed to be included in the study, we performed a sample size calculation based on the following metrics. The confidence level was set at 95%, and we accepted a 5% margin of error. Based on the results of a systematic review by Jergas and Baethge (25), which used methods comparable to our own, we hypothesized that the proportion of major quotation errors would be 11% (quotation errors were the primary outcome and major quotation errors are the most impactful class). To account for the fact that the true quotation error rate in anesthesiology journals has not been previously assessed, and hence that our hypothesis of an 11% quotation rate may differed substantially from the true rate, we increased the minimum recommended sample size to include about 25% of the references from each of the three journals.
Next, the publication year 2017 was randomly selected from a six-year interval prior to the initiation of the study by rolling a die. We took the last issue of each journal in that year and consecutively numbered all the references. In total, there were 122 articles, containing 3,033 literature resources (Table 1). We decided to retain only references to journal articles and web-sites (n = 2,901); book chapters, proceedings of scientific meetings, theses, or newspaper articles were excluded from the downstream analysis as their retrieval is often not possible (26). In alignment with the sample size calculation, we randomly sampled one fourth of the references to journal articles and web-sites, yielding a total of 729 references for all three journals combined (breakdown per journal is shown in Table 1).
Table 1. Selection of articles for assessment of accuracy of citations and quotations in three anesthesiology journals. The last issue published by each journal in 2017 was evaluated (122 total manuscripts). To form the initial sample, we randomly selected approximately 25% of all the references to journal articles or web-sites. The final sample included the references from the initial sample which we were able to collect from journal web-pages, libraries, or web-sites.
| Journal | Articles in the last issue of 2017 | Total references | References per article | References to journal articles/web sites | Initial sample | Final sample (% references to articles or web) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anesthesia and Analgesia | 61 | 1,611 | 26.4 | 1,537 (95%) | 385 | 385 (25%) |
| Anesthesiology | 25 | 632 | 25.3 | 622 (98%) | 157 | 153 (25%) |
| British Journal of Anaesthesia | 36 | 790 | 21.9 | 742 (94%) | 184 | 177 (24%) |
| Total | 122 | 3,033 | 24.9 | 2,901 (96%) | 729 | 715 (25%) |
The cited articles/sites were obtained either by direct on-line access or using the services of the Library of Rush University Medical Center (Chicago, IL), Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center Library (Chicago, IL), and the Library of Varaždin General Hospital (Varaždin, Croatia). The articles and sites that we were able to obtain (n = 715) represented the final sample (Table 1).
Next, the articles from the final sample were randomly allocated to seven reviewers; each reviewer assessed 1/7th of the references from each of three journals. The exception was web-site references, which were assigned to a separate reviewer. The reviewers’ task was then to compare each referenced article/site with the referring article.
The classification of citation errors in journal articles was based on a modification of a previously published scheme (8). Major citation errors were classified as: first author's family name and initials, year of publication, title of the journal, journal volume number or supplement's designation, the initial page number, and digital object identifier (DOI). Minor citation errors included incorrect end page numbers, misspellings of words in the title, punctuation, or co-author details.
To evaluate errors in quotation of journal articles, we followed the classification proposed by Evans et al. and adopted by others (8, 26, 27). A major quotation error was defined as one in which the referenced article contradicted, failed to substantiate, or was unrelated to the author's assertions. Minor quotation errors were inaccuracies with lesser impact on the content, such as the number of patients or reported proportions.
In cases where more than one error of either citation or quotation was found, we counted each error. The reported fractions of citation/quotation errors were calculated by dividing the total number of citation/quotation errors by the number of checked references. Examples of citation and quotation errors are shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Examples of citation and quotation errors in three anesthesiology journals.
| Type of error | Example |
|---|---|
| Major citation | Source of miscitation: Keane C, Jerkić M, Laffey JG. Stem cell–based therapies for sepsis. Anesthesiology 2017;127:1017–1034.Miscitation: Wei J, Wei C, Wang M, et al. The GTPase-activating protein GIT2 protects against colitis by negatively regulating Toll-like receptor signalling. 2014; 111:8883–8888Actual citation: Wei J, Wei C, Wang M, et al. The GTPase-activating protein GIT2 protects against colitis by negatively regulating Toll-like receptor signalling. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014;111:8883–8888. |
| Minor citation | Source of miscitation: Smith LM, Cozowicz C, Uda Y, Memtsoudis SG, Barrington MJ. Neuraxial and combined neuraxial/general anesthesia compared to general anesthesia for major truncal and lower limb surgery: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Anesth Analg. 2017;125:1931–1945.Miscitation: Liu J, Ma C, Elkassabany N, Fleisher LA, Neuman MD. Neuraxial anesthesia decreases postoperative systemic infection risk compared with general anesthesia in knee arthroplasty. Anesth Analg. 2013;117:1010–1016.Actual citation: Liu J, Ma C, Elkassabany N, Fleisher LA, Neuman MD. Neuraxial anesthesia decreases postoperative systemic infection risk compared to general anesthesia in knee arthroplasty. Anesth Analg. 2013;117:1010–1016. |
| Major quotation | Source of misquotation: Elmi-Sarabi M, Denault A. In Response. Anesth Analg. 2017;125:2167–2168Misquote: Our conclusion is somehow similar to the literature and the experience on nitric oxide alone that has definitively favorable hemodynamic effect but no clear effect on clinical outcome and mortality. [3]Misquoted source: Karam O, Gebistorf F, Wetterslev J, Afshari A. The effect of inhaled nitric oxide in acute respiratory distress syndrome in children and adults: a Cochrane Systematic Review with trial sequential analysis. Anaesthesia. 2017;72:106–117.Actual quote: The quoted article focuses on acute respiratory distress syndrome, not on pulmonary hypertension like the article by Elmi-Sarabi and Denault. |
| Minor quotation | Source of misquotation: Nestler C, Simon P, Petroff D, et al. Individualized positive end-expiratory pressure in obese patients during general anaesthesia: a randomized controlled clinical trial using electrical impedance tomography, BJA: Brit J Anaesth. 2017;119:1194–1205.Misquote: „PEEP titration using FiO2–SpO2 diagrams have been suggested recently,[43]…’Misquoted source: Tusman G, Bohm SH, Suarez-Sipmann F. Advanced uses of pulse oximetry for monitoring mechanically ventilated patients. Anesth Analg. 2017;124:62–71.Actual quote: „One ingenious approach has been described by Sapsford and Jones who proposed the use of a Spo2/Fio2 diagram.‘ |
To evaluate errors in citing and/or quoting web pages, we used the following classification. A link to a web page was considered 'dead' if it was pointing to a non-existing page, i.e., entering the web address into the browser's address bar yielded a message “page not found’ (or equivalent). If a link was live, we tried to locate the section to which the citing manuscript was referring. If we were unable to do so (e.g., due to mandatory registration, paywall, or complexity of the page), the citation was labelled ‘unverifiable’. Finally, we compared the citing manuscript with the information provided by the source web-page and if they did not match, the label ‘quotation error’ was used.
On-line calculators were used to compute the sample size1, 95% confidence intervals (CI)2, and agreement between the reviewers3. Random numbers needed to sample the references were generated by the R programming language4.
Ethics committee approval was not required because this study analyzed only publicly available published articles and did not involve human participants, human tissue, or identifiable personal data.
3 Results
The final 2017 issues of Anesthesia and Analgesia, Anesthesiology, and British Journal of Anaesthesia published a total of 122 manuscripts referring to just over 3,000 resources. The majority of them (2,901 or 96%) were journal articles or web sites and qualified for inclusion in the study. We then randomly selected about a quarter from each journal (729 in total) and managed to retrieve 715 (98% of the selected ones) (Figure 1).

To assess initial inter-reviewer agreement, the first seven references from each journal were reviewed by all the reviewers. The overall agreement on citation accuracy was 77% (Fleiss’ fixed-marginal multirater κ = 0.7, 95% CI = 0.59–0.81), while the agreement on quotation accuracy was 67% (free-marginal κ = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.34–0.68). The reviewers’ reports were evaluated by the senior author, and feedback was provided to ensure harmonized evaluation criteria.
We detected 111 citation errors when analyzing referenced journal articles and the overall error rate was 16% (95% CI = 13% ̶ 19%) (111/697) (Table 3). About a quarter (31/111 or 27%) of the citation errors were major. The errors were evenly distributed across the journals (32% of the errors were detected in Anesthesia and Analgesia, 31% in Anesthesiology, and 38% in the British Journal of Anaesthesia). Although beyond the scope of this study, we noticed that errors were not necessarily made by the authors, but were also introduced by PubMed. For example, the title of the article that we used as an example of a minor citation error is actually ‘Neuraxial anaesthesia decreases postoperative systemic infection risk compared to general anaesthesia in knee arthroplasty’5, but the main PubMed entry states ‘Neuraxial anaesthesia decreases postoperative systemic infection risk compared with general anaesthesia in knee arthroplasty’6. Consistent with the latter, PubMed's Cite button uses the word ‘with’.
Table 3. Citation errors relating to journal articles, detected in three anesthesiology journals in the last issue of 2017. CI: confidence interval.
| Journal | Checked references (n) | Major errors (% checked) | Minor errors (% checked) | Total errors (% checked; 95% CI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anesthesia and Analgesia | 371 | 10 (2.7%) | 25 (6.7%) | 35 (9.4%; 6.6%–13%) |
| Anesthesiology | 151 | 8 (5.3%) | 26 (17%) | 34 (23%; 16%–30%) |
| British Journal of Anaesthesia | 175 | 13 (7.4%) | 29 (17%) | 42 (24%; 18%–31%) |
| Total | 697 | 31 (4.4%) | 80 (11%) | 111 (16%; 13%–19%) |
The total number of errors made when quoting journal articles was 114 (16%; 95% CI 14% ̶ 19%) (Table 4). In contrast to the citation errors, two thirds of quotation errors (77/114 or 68%) were classified as major. The distribution of quotation errors was not as even as that of citation errors, and ranged from 25% (29/114 in Anesthesiology) to 41% (47/114 in Anesthesia and Analgesia).
Table 4. Quotation errors relating to journal articles, detected in three anesthesiology journals in the last issue of 2017. CI: confidence interval.
| Journal | Checked references (n) | Major errors (% checked) | Minor errors (% checked) | Total errors (% checked; 95% CI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anesthesia and Analgesia | 371 | 28 (7.5%) | 19 (5.1%) | 47 (13%; 9.5%–16%) |
| Anesthesiology | 151 | 20 (13%) | 9 (6.0%) | 29 (19%; 13%–26%) |
| British Journal of Anaesthesia | 175 | 29 (17%) | 9 (5.1%) | 38 (22%; 16%–29%) |
| Total | 697 | 77 (11%) | 37 (5.3%) | 114 (16%; 14%–19%) |
Only 18 (3%) of the evaluated references were web sites (Table 5). Out of those, three (3/18 or 17%) could not be assessed because the links pointed to non-existing web pages. We were not able to check quoting in about a half (7/15 or 47%) of the remaining ones. The reasons included: mandatory registration (n = 2); the referenced web site was in fact a search page, but the exact search criteria were not given (n = 2); the referring link pointed only to the home page, but breadcrumbs were required to find the exact page containing the quoted information (n = 3). Finally, misquotations were found in a quarter (n = 2) of the pages for which quotation accuracy could be evaluated (n = 8).
Table 5. Citation and quotation errors related to web sites, detected in three anesthesiology journals in the last issue of 2017.
| Journal | Checked references (n) | Dead link(% checked) | Unverifiable quotation(% checked) | Misquotation(% checked) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anesthesia and Analgesia | 14 | 3 (21%) | 6 (43%) | 1 (7%) |
| Anesthesiology | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| British Journal of Anaesthesia | 2 | 0 | 1 (50%) | 1 (50%) |
| Total | 18 | 3 (17%) | 7 (39%) | 2 (11%) |
4 Discussion
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on quotation accuracy in anesthesiology journals. We find it encouraging that the total quotation error rate of 16% is slightly lower than that typically reported for medical periodicals (range 20% to 25%) (25, 28, 29). An even more informative finding is the structure of errors: 68% were major, implying potentially serious consequences. Although there are no previous results on quotation error rate in anesthesiology, one study reported that only 40% of quotations of a single article published in British Journal of Anaesthesia in 1973 were accurate (30). It is thus fair to hypothesize that the high proportion of major quotation errors in anesthesiology journals is not a recent development.
Next, the current citation error rate in anesthesiology journals was 16%, which is lower than the previously reported rates for medical literature (23% and 38%) (25, 28). Of note, the current citation error rate is considerably lower than the 50% reported by the first studies on citations in anesthesiology (14–21). With respect to their structure, most citation errors were minor (72%), so their practical relevance is, at worst, quite modest.
The encouraging situation regarding citation errors is likely a consequence of measures that have been implemented since the 1980s, and the pioneering role of anesthesiology journals is well worth emphasizing. Requiring authors to submit a copy of the first page of each cited article reduced the number of citing errors in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia (16), while a specific request by editors that authors confirm reference accuracy improved citing quality in Anesthesiology (17). In addition, it is likely that general awareness of the importance of proper citing has also contributed to the overall improvement of citing practice (1).
In contrast, the rate of citation mistakes is still not close to zero, which could have actually been expected given the growing number of software applications available to authors, editors, journals, and libraries (28). For instance, some journals automatically check references against PubMed upon submission of an article and warn the authors if an issue is found. Furthermore, a feature provided by many journals and by PubMed is the download of a citation, which can then be imported to a reference management package. In our work, we found only one instance of an error introduced by PubMed, but a recent evaluation of two biomedical databases, i.e., Ovid MEDLINE and PubMed reported that none of the examined 60 citations were correct (31).
From the authors perspective, citation management software can help find, cite, and store references (32), and can certainly help deduplicate reference lists and avoid errors introduced by re-typing bibliographical details. Ironically, it seems that reference management packages can also propagate errors if present in databases7. Thus, the only evidence-based solution so far is an extensive editing package provided by editorial offices (28).
Another aspect of our work is the preliminary observation on citations to web sites. We found about 3% of references to the uniform resource locators (URLs), which is comparable to other reports (22, 33). When verifying quotations of URLs, we faced several challenges, half of which have not been described before. Dead links (16%) were previously described, albeit with higher frequency, e.g., 22% and 45% (27, 33). Another problem was that a link may point to a home page, but not to the exact page containing the quoted information (34). Next, if an article refers to a search page, we find the web address alone of limited use, i.e., the authors should have provided the exact search terms and/or the search strategy. Finally, some web-pages required registration. Although registration was not necessarily against a fee, it can still be considered an obstacle when accessing and/or verifying a quotation.
Regarding the possible limitations of our work, the assessment of severity an error may be subjective (28). During our test round of assessment, we noticed that the evaluators faced difficulties when differentiating between minor and intermediate citation errors. Therefore, we modified the classification that we have used before (8), and divided the citation errors in two categories (i.e., major and minor, the latter combining Fenton's intermediate and minor) (26).
On a similar note, we were also concerned about the number of evaluators and their consistency. However, their agreement for both citations and quotations, as assessed by the κ statistic (77% and 67%, respectively) can be interpreted as ‘intermediate to good’8. Although these values indicate that there were still some inconsistencies in evaluation, given the number of evaluators we find them acceptable. Another possible limitation is the number of web sites included in our sample, which was rather modest, so a larger sample is required to make generalizable conclusions. Still, the results presented here raise some important questions, which should be answered by further investigations. Next, any comparison between studies, within anesthesiology or across medical fields, should be interpreted with caution, due to methodological differences (28, 29). Moreover, our study was cross sectional, like many other studies on citation and quotation accuracy (28), so our conclusions cannot be broadly generalized.
We would also like to acknowledge that our analysis refers to articles published in 2017. Since then, there were many changes in scientific publishing, including wider adoption of reference-management software and widespread use of AI-powered writing tools. Unfortunately, despite technological advances, rates of bibliographic errors in scholarly publishing have not changed much as documented by recent studies, including a systematic review from 2024 (13, 35, 36).
While journal articles are still burdened by citation errors, quotation mistakes are the ones that all the parties involved, i.e., authors, editors, and publishers, should focus on. In line with the work by Lock and Bearman, we agree that blaming individuals is of relatively low importance when dealing with this issue; the key is to change the systemic factors, or the environment, that could have contributed to quotation errors (such as the current academic culture of production, which may lead to ‘corner cutting’ and using of secondary rather than primary texts) (37). Many practical measures to mitigate quotation errors have already been proposed and discussed by Pavlović and colleagues (38), while we would like to specifically emphasize the role of artificial intelligence-powered tools, such as the natural language processing (NLP) methods. For instance, Sarol et al. studied the ability of several NLPs to assess quotation accuracy (39). Although the results were not ideal, the improvements in the AI field will likely contribute to the improvement of citation quality and accuracy in the near future. There is, however, an element of irony: scientific writing assisted by large language models (LLMs), a specific type of NLPs, has become quite prevalent. Based on an analysis of more than 15 million PubMed abstracts, Kobak and colleagues estimated that at least 13.5% of biomedical abstracts published in 2024 were processed using LLMs (40). The problem is that LLMs are known to fabricate references and inaccurately quote actual manuscripts (41).
Eliminating quotation errors will obviously require substantial effort, but it will contribute to the reliability of information in anesthesiology. Furthermore, that reliable information will then, in turn, help improve patient care not only in anesthesiology, but also in medicine more broadly. As an illustration, we point to a case study reporting on a commentary of a scale used to assess the quality of observational studies. Almost all the papers citing the commentary (96%) were indirect quotations, and 98% of those portrayed the commentary as positive when, in fact, the opposite was the case (42). Translating this example into a field as critical as anesthesiology, and in the context of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, it is not difficult to envision possible serious consequences of such mistakes.
Lastly, although our observations on web-based resources are based on about 20 references, we believe that they draw attention to an important issue for the scientific community. We find it highly likely that the references to web-based materials will become more frequent in the near future, and now is the right time to establish appropriate standards.
Generative AI statement
The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.
Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Footnotes
Edited by: Shujuan Ma, Maternal and Child Health Hospital, China
Reviewed by: Asli Metin Mahmutoglu, Yozgat Bozok Universitesi, Türkiye
İsmet Çopur, Pamukkale University, Türkiye
Footnotes
1http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html [accessed 20 December 2025]
2https://sample-size.net/confidence-interval-proportion/ [accessed 20 December 2025].
3http://justusrandolph.net/kappa/ [accessed 20 December 2025]
4http://www.R-project.org/ [accessed 20 December 2025]
5https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3800057/ [accessed 8 June 2025]
6https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24023024/ [accessed 8 June 2025]
7https://jeffollerton.co.uk/2016/09/07/do-reference-management-systems-encourage-sloppy-referencing-practices/?utm_source=chatgpt.com [accessed 8 June 2026]
8http://justusrandolph.net/kappa/ [accessed 7 June 2026]
Statements
- Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
- Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was not received for this work and/or its publication.
- Data availability
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
- Author contributions
AL: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft. PK: Writing – review & editing, Data curation, Writing – original draft. NP: Data curation, Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft. AH: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Data curation. MM: Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. SM: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Data curation. KR: Writing – review & editing, Data curation, Writing – original draft. KC: Writing – original draft, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. SS: Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Methodology, Writing – review & editing. SE: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Formal analysis, Methodology. VG: Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Data curation, Conceptualization. IL: Writing – review & editing, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Conceptualization, Supervision, Data curation, Project administration, Methodology, Formal analysis.
References
- 1. Mašić I. The importance of proper citation of references in biomedical articles. Acta Inform Med. (2013) 21 (3): 148 – 55. doi:10.5455/aim.2013.21.148-155
- 2. Hoffmann R, Kabanov AA, Golov AA, Proserpio DM. Homo citans and carbon allotropes: for an ethics of citation. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. (2016) 55 (37): 10962 – 76. doi:10.1002/anie.201600655
- 3. Coverdale JH, Roberts LW, Balon R, Beresin EV. Writing for academia: getting your research into print: AMEE guide No. 74. Med Teach. (2013) 35 (2): e926 – 34. doi:10.3109/0142159X.2012.742494
- 4. Roland CG. Thoughts about medical writing. XXXVII. Verify your references. Anesth Analg. (1976) 55 (5): 717 – 8. doi:10.1213/00000539-197609000-00023
- 5. De Lacey G, Record C, Wade J. How accurate are quotations and references in medical journals? Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). (1985) 291: 884 – 6. doi:10.1136/bmj.291.6499.884
- 6. Siebers R, Holt S. Accuracy of references in five leading medical journals. Lancet. (2000) 356 (9239): 1445. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)74090-3
- 7. Mertens S, Baethge C. The virtues of correct citation: careful referencing is important but is often neglected/even in peer reviewed articles. Dtsch Arztebl Int. (2011) 108 (33): 550 – 2. doi:10.3238/arztebl.2011.0550
- 8. Lukić IK, Lukić A, Glunčić V, Katavić V, Vučenik V, Marušić A. Citation and quotation accuracy in three anatomy journals. Clin Anat. (2004) 17 (7): 534 – 9. doi:10.1002/ca.10255
- 9. Awrey J, Inaba K, Barmparas G, Recinos G, Teixeira PGR, Chan LS. Reference accuracy in the General Surgery Literature. World J Surg. (2011) 35 (3): 475 – 9. doi:10.1007/s00268-010-0912-7
- 10. Homeier D, Adams M, Lynch T, Cognetti D. Inaccurate citations are prevalent within orthopaedic sports medicine literature. Arthrosc Sports Med Rehabil. (2024) 6 (1): 100873. doi:10.1016/j.asmr.2023.100873
- 11. Curlewis K, Leung B, Sinclair L, Ricketts D, Rogers B. Quotation errors related to the wound management of open lower limb fractures (WOLLF) randomized clinical trial. Eur J Orthop Surg Traumatol. (2023) 33: 701 – 7. doi:10.1007/s00590-022-03243-w
- 12. Montenegro TS, Hines K, Gonzalez GA, Fatema U, Partyka PP, Thalheimer S. How accurate is the neurosurgery literature? A review of references. Acta Neurochir. (2021) 163 (1): 13 – 8. doi:10.1007/s00701-020-04576-3
- 13. Mahmutoglu AM, Agarwal A, Sahin B, Reiss TA, Sengupta P, Pinggera GM. Reducing quotation errors in scientific manuscripts: a novel approach from the Global Andrology Forum. World J Mens Health. (2025) 43 (3): 710 – 20. doi:10.5534/wjmh.240255
- 14. McLellan MF, Case LD, Barnett MC. Trust, but verify: the accuracy of references in four anesthesia journals. Anesthesiology. (1992) 77 (1): 185 – 8. doi:10.1097/00000542-199207000-00024
- 15. Nishina K, Mikawa K, Asano M, Maekawa N, Obara H. Reference accuracy in critical care medicine. Crit Care Med. (1995) 23 (9): 1610 – 1. doi:10.1097/00003246-199509000-00029
- 16. Asano M, Mikawa K, Nishina K, Maekawa N, Obara H. Improvement of the accuracy of references in the Canadian journal of anaesthesia. Can J Anaesth. (1995) 42 (5 Pt 1): 370 – 2. doi:10.1007/BF03015478
- 17. Nishina K, Asano M, Mikawa K, Maekawa N, Obara H. Improvement of the accuracy of references in Anesthesiology. Anesthesiology. (1995) 82 (2): 599 – 600. doi:10.1097/00000542-199502000-00038
- 18. Nishina K, Asano M, Mikawa K, Maekawa N, Obara H. Accuracy of references in Paediatric Anaesthesia. Paediatr Anaesth. (1995) 5 (2): 142 – 4. doi:10.1111/j.1460-9592.1995.tb00263.x
- 19. Asano M, Mikawa K, Nishina K, Maekawa N, Obara H. The accuracy of references in Anaesthesia. Anaesthesia. (1995) 50 (12): 1080 – 2. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2044.1995.tb05956.x
- 20. Nishina K, Asano M, Mikawa K, Maekawa N, Obara H. The accuracy of reference lists in Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. (1995) 39 (5): 577 – 8. doi:10.1111/j.1399-6576.1995.tb04129.x
- 21. Nishina K, Mikawa K, Obara H. Improvement of the accuracy of references in the Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia. J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. (2000) 14 (4): 495 – 6.
- 22. Thorp AW, Brown L. Accessibility of internet references in annals of emergency medicine: is it time to require archiving? Ann Emerg Med. (2007) 50 (2): 188 – 192.e33. doi:10.1016/j.annemergmed.2006.11.019
- 23. McKee M, Van Schalkwyk MCI, Stuckler D. The second information revolution: digitalization brings opportunities and concerns for public health. Eur J Public Health. (2019) 29 (Suppl 3): 3 – 6. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckz160
- 24. Merchant RM, Asch DA. Protecting the value of medical science in the age of social media and “fake news”. JAMA. (2018) 320 (23): 2415 – 6. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.18416
- 25. Jergas H, Baethge C. Quotation accuracy in medical journal articles —a systematic review and meta-analysis. PeerJ. (2015) 3: e1364. doi:10.7717/peerj.1364
- 26. Fenton JE, Brazier H, De Souza A, Hughes JP, McShane DP. The accuracy of citation and quotation in otolaryngology/head and neck surgery journals. Clin Otolaryngol Allied Sci. (2000) 25 (1): 40 – 4. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2273.2000.00322.x
- 27. Evans JT, Nadjari HI, Burchell SA. Quotational and reference accuracy in surgical journals. A continuing peer review problem. JAMA. (1990) 263 (10): 1353 – 4. doi:10.1001/jama.1990.03440100059009
- 28. Wager E, Middleton P. Technical editing of research reports in biomedical journals. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. (2008) 4: MR000002. doi:10.1002/14651858.MR000002.pub3
- 29. Mogull SA. Accuracy of cited “facts” in medical research articles: a review of study methodology and recalculation of quotation error rate. PLoS One. (2017) 12 (9): e0184727. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184727
- 30. Kolbitsch C, Hörmann C, Benzer A. Quotation accuracy in neuroanesthesiologic research. J Neurosurg Anesthesiol. (1997) 9 (1): 8 – 10.
- 31. Scheinfeld L, Chung S. MEDLINE Citation tool accuracy: an analysis in two platforms. J Med Libr Assoc. (2024) 112 (2): 133 – 9. doi:10.5195/jmla.2024.1718
- 32. Sungur MO, Seyhan TÖ. Writing references and using citation management software. Turk J Urol. (2013) 39 (Suppl 1): 25 – 32. doi:10.5152/tud.2013.050
- 33. Carnevale RJ, Aronsky D. The life and death of URLs in five biomedical informatics journals. Int J Med Inform. (2007) 76 (4): 269 – 73. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2005.12.001
- 34. Thorp AW, Schriger DL. Citations to web pages in scientific articles: the permanence of archived references. Ann Emerg Med. (2011) 57 (2): 165 – 8. doi:10.1016/j.annemergmed.2010.11.029
- 35. Lin EH, Young BA, Feingold CL, Major EL, Stone AV, Liu JN. Evaluating quotation accuracy in shoulder and elbow literature. J Shoulder Elbow Surg. (2025) 34 (11): e1125 – 30. doi:10.1016/j.jse.2025.02.041
- 36. Baethge C, Jergas H. Systematic review and meta-analysis of quotation inaccuracy in medicine. Res Integr Peer Rev. (2025) 10 (1): 13. doi:10.1186/s41073-025-00173-z
- 37. Lock J, Bearman C. Normalization of deviation: quotation error in human factors. Hum Factors. (2018) 60 (3): 293 – 304. doi:10.1177/0018720817752253
- 38. Pavlovic V, Weissgerber T, Stanisavljevic D, Pekmezovic T, Milicevic O, Milin Lazovic J. How accurate are citations of frequently cited papers in biomedical literature? Clin Sci (Lond). (2021) 135 (5): 671 – 81. doi:10.1042/CS20201573
- 39. Sarol MJ, Ming S, Radhakrishna S, Schneider J, Kilicoglu H. Assessing citation integrity in biomedical publications: corpus annotation and NLP models. Bioinformatics. (2024) 40 (7): btae420. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btae420
- 40. Kobak D, González-Márquez R, Horvát EÁ, Lause J. Delving into LLM-assisted writing in biomedical publications through excess vocabulary. Sci Adv. (2025) 11 (27): eadt3813. doi:10.1126/sciadv.adt3813
- 41. Bhattacharyya M, Miller VM, Bhattacharyya D, Miller LE. High rates of fabricated and inaccurate references in ChatGPT-generated medical content. Cureus. (2023) 15 (5): e39238. doi:10.7759/cureus.39238
- 42. Stang A, Jonas S, Poole C. Case study in major quotation errors: a critical commentary on the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Eur J Epidemiol. (2018) 33 (11): 1025 – 31. doi:10.1007/s10654-018-0443-3
Citation
Lukic, A., et al. (2026). Citation and quotation accuracy in three anesthesia journals: a cross-sectional survey. Frontiers in Anesthesiology, Volume 5. https://doi.org/
- Received
- Accepted
- Published
- Volume
- 5 - 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Lukic, Khamooshi, Patel, Hemmat, Modrić, Mirkarimi, Reiner, Candido, Suresh, Edelstein, Gluncic and Lukić.
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
*Correspondence: Anita Lukic
Article metrics
- Views
- 0
- Downloads
- 0
- Citations
- 0
- Shares
- 0
