I understand that sources should be cited no matter their age. However, I am noticing a highly prominent journal article-trend in which works older than two decades are rarely referenced in text. Is there some sort of unspoken disrespect for writers who cite papers from say - the 1960's? There are many great works from these time periods that laid the foundation of much of today's published research. It seems that scientists are going out of their way to cite more recent articles, with similar information, rather than the original research due solely to the date on the citation.
Why have these papers been left out of reference lists so frequently? Does a paper seem less "current" with the inclusion of aged journal articles?
There are many factors to take into consideration. You should cite the first time something was stated upon which you are building. This is often an older piece of research. However there will be many supporting pieces of work which contribute to the current state of knowledge, which are frequently well discussed in reviews, and you should use the most recent reviews as references in order to make sure you are building upon the state of the art knowledge.
Of course there are practical considerations such as the ability to find references, as mentioned by Ian, and also the overall impression given - you need to show that your research is cutting edge and that you are up-to-date with the latest research. Overall you should cite the first reference and the most comprehensive discussion of any point, but should avoid too many references for one idea.
There are two reasons. i) The body of knowledge is expanding exponentially, so chances are that the reference is recent. ii) It is difficult to know that a physical reference is available because of lack of full-text search.
After working towards my current book project since 1990, I was surprised last month to find a very relevant reference from 1957 that I was completely unaware of!
There are many factors to take into consideration. You should cite the first time something was stated upon which you are building. This is often an older piece of research. However there will be many supporting pieces of work which contribute to the current state of knowledge, which are frequently well discussed in reviews, and you should use the most recent reviews as references in order to make sure you are building upon the state of the art knowledge.
Of course there are practical considerations such as the ability to find references, as mentioned by Ian, and also the overall impression given - you need to show that your research is cutting edge and that you are up-to-date with the latest research. Overall you should cite the first reference and the most comprehensive discussion of any point, but should avoid too many references for one idea.
I guess, it happened because the authors don't have an access to full text of these old articles. Also, there is always an update either in the experiment or in the instruments used for measurements so its better to cite a new article. It's like a book with multiple edition, you will cite the newest unless you need someting from previous edition ;-)
Apart from the reasons provided above, a rule of thumb is that you need to provide references for those claims that are not based on your own results, nor are commonly known. The latter is of course somewhat tricky, but one could state that something is commonly known if it is in all the undergrad textbooks on a subject. This could well be the case for findings from the 1960s, again, depending on your particular field of study.
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