Is there a general rule where researcher consider while writing the paper not to include old references ? How many years ago considered old? What the percentage of these old references in relation to the whole number?
Dear Heba,
no reference is ever old, people who claim a reference is old have a very shallow myopic view to education, there are works dating back to even hundred years ago or even more, but they are still most insightful references, consider, Plato , Vygotsky, Bloom's taxonomy , maslow's taxonomy of needs, Marxist theories, Gramschi's Hegemony , etc .
these are classic signature theory and ideas never ever getting ''old ''.
good luck with your study
Dear Heba,
I agree with Prof. Rahimi Ali. The references never get old. Every article has its own value. The information may be get updated or expanded. But the importance of the articles remain the same. Are we remembering and using the works of ancient scientists,even now?
you are spot on prof naduvath , thanks for the intellectual attitude you have taken
Dear Heba
Our colleagues are right however many reviewers of journals will count the set of references provided and they usually like that more than 60% of your references are within 5 years of 2015, for example. So, journals have their rules as well.
I guess the idea is to use original references where necessary and build on those with the latest contemporary updates which are highly empirically researched.
Thank you all! I agree with you but my paper was rejected as the references were old. I agree that some trials should be cited even if old, but there are some basic information that do not differ between old and new papers so better to be cited from new ones ( basic mechanism or biology or physiology or anatomy of organ for eg). I just wanted a rough estimate of what meant by old: 10,15,20 years? And it's percentages as I am re-writing the paper.
Hi Heba
Really I d not know of rules on that, however, my experience is that for a paper of 40 references, 2 or 3 references from 60 s or 70s, 4 to 5 ref. 80s and 90s, and the rest within 15 years (2000 to 2015) and at least 15 references within 5 years.
so,
2 - 3 very old 60-70s
4 -5 old 80-90s
6 - 8 2000 - 2005 recent
6 - 8 2006 - 2009 most recent
12 - 20 2009 - 2015 Current
However, careful about the journal style. Here I recommend to look at a current journal paper in the journal of interest and analyze the dates of the papers. Do it for 2-3 papers. You will get a pretty clear picture about the situation.
Dr Hussin! This is extremely helpful. This agrees with , but elaborates more on a comment from a previous publication reviewer that the price index ( percent of ref within five years/total ref) should be 30% at least
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