Hi

It depends on synthesis and whether you have included enough and renowned literature to explain the intelligent idea.

Rgds

It depends on the research objective and methodology. At least 15-20 references.

Regards

Also of significance is the extent of previous works in that area. Articles delving into novel areas or reporting inventions may not necessarily require numerous literature citation. Generally however, the more previous studies consulted, especially those very relevant and recent, the better the likelihood of your own article representing advancement in knowledge.

There is no fixed rule. Around 15-20 relevant references including latest is considered enough.

If you have a review of literature in that specific area, we can identify the gaps form the references available in that which is more than enough. If you have already identified the gaps, you can look in for three or four papers which all depends on the understanding you have in your topic.

It depends on the study and what other authors are discussing and any issues raised. You also need to stay centred on the topic and not look too much outside. Sometimes you may cite authors going back to the 1970s and some markers want more contemporary research. It is important to synthesise what is being discussed, conclusions drawn and to look at the two sides of the same coin. As a guideline for an academic journal 30-50 references may be the range but a Literature Review is not merely a chronology of who says what. You are looking for 'gaps' in the Literature.

Cannot fix the number -- quality of references is critical. You need to provide sufficient evidence to support your hypothesis or thesis. This evidence will include the key findings in the field that have shaped the thinking. You will also be sure to find recent work which indicates the paths that have been followed. Importantly you will interpret the different authors views and research, showing how they relate to your thesis. Through critical reflection you will link your findings within the literature to prove / show the importance of the area that you are researching. Readers have to be convinced by your arguments that your interpretation of the implications of prior work is valid.

I agree with my colleagues that for stronger journals you need to review around 50 articles. I may add that for stronger journals, you will have to get those studies for stronger journals as ell. Citing studies from week journals may become a red light for reviewers.

I agree it depends on the journal. But we also consider how deep we want to discuss the topic (especially in literature review) and the availability of the materials.

If I write literature review I use at least 40-50 domestic references and 25-30 foreign. If I have the results of my experiments, surveys etc., I'll use 15-20 references (to find the result of absolutely identical study is quite difficult).

And a lot depends on the requirements of the publisher.

Helen Strong has almost conveyed my views. Quality of references and their contextual relevance is most important. Go by Helen's description.

Thanks and regards to Helen as well.

As others have responded, it depends on the scope of your research and the potential impact of its findings. For a large project, I resource for a literature review paper as a companion to my paper. Quality and relevance are crucial, so I will have key, integral references alongside broader, more world-view articles. Beware of artificially narrowing the field. I subscribe to political and other areas, for example, MSPs questions in Holyrood and civil service online, to get insight into current zeitgeist if influences field of study. You will know instinctively how far to go: I have worked with as little as four references and as many as over three hundred.

Well said.

I use nearly 25 , but of course for publishing your article in the strong international journal you should use 50 articles and 10 of them should be more up to date, for example 10 of them should be published in 2017.

Usually more than 15 of the last three years.

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Number per se is not the most important, but high quality of the knowledge of the State of Art (which includes numbers)

I also concur with Helen Strong. Number is not te most important, but the quality of the references. In any case, most than 0 are always necessary.2

The number really adds up as you prepare the paper which means numbers cannot be specified!

The literature has to be extensive enough to back-up the paper.

There is no right or wrong answer or this. As you write and develop your research paper you will refer to literature and so make a reference acknowledgement and this you ill continue till you finish your paper.So,exactly how many will be determined automatically by deleting repetitive references.

I also agree with @Helen Strong.

Moreover, as a reviewer, my first job is to read carefully the title (plus keywords & abstract) and then the reference section. Sometimes, I found that literature had nothing common with the title (keywords) - just to fill a certain criteria of journal/proceedings.

Furthermore, it depends of what are you writing - conference paper, journal article, extended article, monograph, etc., i.e. the "depth" of your research.

The more complex is research, the more literature is used. For example, I have a publication with 10 sources and one with more than 400.

That's why I agree with @Kalpathy Ramaiyer Subramanian who says: "There is no right or wrong answer on this."

Thanks Anton

I agree with Helen and Kalpathy.

The number of the literature to be used might also be depended on the literature review technique. For example there is a technique called systematic Literature Review (SLR). The idea is we need to put relevant search string into different journal databases. After that we might asses the relevancy and the quality of the articles to be included in our research.

Usually the search string derives from the positioning study (the summary of the seminal papers in the area that we are going to explore). However when the topic is very new I believe we might end up with very limited articles number, thus we may want to snowballing the available articles.

There is an excellent paper on SLR:

Tranfield, D., Denyer, D. and Smart, P., 2003. Towards a methodology for developing evidence‐informed management knowledge by means of systematic review. British journal of management, 14(3), pp.207-222.

Good question. From my experience as contributor and peer-reviewer of papers with empirical evidence, it's about 60-80 references.

More than 50% of them should be recent (last five years). 10-20% related to methodological aspects, 10% to context and official reports and about 10% related to fundamental theories, concepts or philosophies...

Good luck.

it depends also on the subject and research design...if it is an exploratory or confirmatory...theoretical or empirical research

thank you Karim and Maryna for the recommendation. Hoping that the above answers the question satisfactorily.