Accuracy of references in the doctoral theses in library and information science submitted to Banasthali Vidyapith

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate the accuracy of references in the fourteen Ph.D. theses in Library and Information Science (LIS) submitted to Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan, India. One thousand seven hundred and twenty one (1721) journal references were checked thoroughly dividing them into seven bibliographic elements, i.e. name of author(s), article title, journal title, year, volume number, issue number, and pages (both first and last page). These components were checked from the original journal articles. Results show that 22.08% (380) references in LIS theses had no errors, while 77.92% (1341) references contained errors. In 1341 faulty references, a sum of 2869 errors were observed, out of which 1231 were major and 1638 were minor errors. The reference accuracy rate for LIS theses ranged from 0% to 42.77%. The average number of errors in references was 1.67. The research findings indicate that citation instruction in Pre Ph.D. Programme is strongly required to promote better citation behaviour.