As in many (most?) things, I agree with Dean Whitehead above. In addition to his fine response, I would reiterate that of course great care should always be taken. One should not cite randomly but with care and precision. It is not always about how recently a cited paper was published, but the “currency” of the paper. Of course, we all know of seminal papers that were published in fairly nondescript or unfashionable journals, or journals that became much better on the back of publishing works that subsequently became seminal and/or highly cited. So it’s not about the impact factor of the journal really at all, in contrast to what Nisarg said above.

One may cite in order to give comfort to the reader that there are opposing viewpoints, or give a (sometimes subtle) signal that one is aware of several competing arguments or points of view. For example, if one was talking about a fairly immature field, with competing paradigms, then you could signal to the world that you are aware that there have been competing conceptualisations that have emerged in different places (the US and in mainland Europe, say) by citing someone from the US-dominated literature alongside a seminal paper from a European tradition.

The point being that you should cite every single time for a reason: strategically, with great care.

It is very important to cite the article which published in high impact factor journal. It will increase the valuation of that citation. Second thing is that you must add recent citations means the research which had done in past one year or two year it will show that author is aware about the recent trends in the topic in which the article belong to.

I think that the citations should be essential for the content of our contribution. They should be avoided the articles or books that do not say key treated aspects. Related references are not sufficient criterium to cite them.

Dennis - care should be taken - but it depends on the context of the paper. For instance, if it is a systematic review, meta-analysis, meta-synthesis, integrative review, concept analysis, discourse analysis etc - then the central rigour comes from a structured critical literature search and critical review appraisal. The attached chapter, while nursing and midwifery-focused, may assist - as the principles are generic.

If your manuscript is a primary research article, then the introduction and discussion sections can be a little 'looser' in terms of integrated citation. The general rule is more around 'are the citations recent i.e. within 5-years'; 'are they good quality' and 'are they closely related to the topic material'?

Hi,

The references in an article should always be relevant and functional to the written paper, otherwise one could assume other motivations behind the references.

As in many (most?) things, I agree with Dean Whitehead above. In addition to his fine response, I would reiterate that of course great care should always be taken. One should not cite randomly but with care and precision. It is not always about how recently a cited paper was published, but the “currency” of the paper. Of course, we all know of seminal papers that were published in fairly nondescript or unfashionable journals, or journals that became much better on the back of publishing works that subsequently became seminal and/or highly cited. So it’s not about the impact factor of the journal really at all, in contrast to what Nisarg said above.

One may cite in order to give comfort to the reader that there are opposing viewpoints, or give a (sometimes subtle) signal that one is aware of several competing arguments or points of view. For example, if one was talking about a fairly immature field, with competing paradigms, then you could signal to the world that you are aware that there have been competing conceptualisations that have emerged in different places (the US and in mainland Europe, say) by citing someone from the US-dominated literature alongside a seminal paper from a European tradition.

The point being that you should cite every single time for a reason: strategically, with great care.