Jamal - 1,000 references would certainly seem excessive. Generally, if a reference limit is mentioned by publishing houses, it tends to be around 50.

Thank you very indeed Dean Whitehead , Adrian Twissell

I am working on a certain area in Self-Determination Theory. One of the research papers which I am analyzing was cited more than forty four thousands times. Professor Richard M Ryan, the co-founder of SDT, was cited more than three hundred thousands times and I need to refer to many authors who cited his research work. That is why I feel I need to refer to many research papers and cite them in my research paper.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fraRBsIAAAAJ&hl=ar&oi=ao

Is it good to to use many references in a research paper and can a researcher use one thousand references or more in one research paper?

No hard & fast rule on how many references required in each manuscript. More importantly the references (quantity & quality) cited should help you to justify or position your research / manuscript better for review / readership & knowledge contribution.

Refferances from 30 to 100 according to types of paper

There is no rule to limit number of references in a research paper. It depends on the type of paper. A review paper is likely to have more number of references than experiment based research paper.

Each journal has its own specification. The author's guideline provides accurate answer for this.

Normally, for a research article, it should maximum of 30 or thereabouts; for a review article, it's usually up to 150 (or more); for case report, letter to the editor or short communication (as the case may be) it should be around or maximum of 10. However, each journal has its own specification which revolves around what I just highlighted here.

Well you could cited (somebody's name and references therein). I saw that type of citation in astrophysics papers, they usually have many authors. Regards.

There is no rule to limit number of references in a research paper

1000 references!! It is better to used a very close references to your paper with an accepted number ...

The most important is the relation of references to the article content not their numbers. Also the new references are important which indicate that the Author is following updating articles

Thank you very much indeed Adrian Twissell

Adrian Twissell

Thank you dear colleagues for your interesting discussion, there is no rule for a limited number of references in a research paper, and I totally agree with you dear prof A.B. Salman, on the importance of linking references and the modern ones to subject of research and not the number of references

It depends on the research paper.

If it is a 5 - 6 page, original research-based paper + limited, background literature review, 30 - 50 sources should be sufficient.

If it is a longer review paper, it would depend on the topic and its complexity. Sometimes, a lit review of 70 - 100+ sources is not uncommon.

1000 sources though seems a bit excessive. It is hardly reader friendly. One should consider this aspect of publishing also.

With such a high count, it turns out that every two words in the paper would have to be referenced.

Plus, if we are talking about a review on the life work of a single author (+ his/her critics), let us remind ourselves that his/ her work is a progression (i.e. subsequent works build on previous publications), so...1000 sources still sounds a bit too much.

:)

Follow,

1000 references in one article is too much. There is no need to use quantitative parameters but qualitative ones. More important is the idea and quality of experimental research, usually citing authors who work in the same field. In review articles, there are more references: 100-150 but not 1000 - then the list of references will be larger than the article and it will be "lost".

There is no fixed number of articles, much depends on common sense

There is no limitations for references sir.

There must be a positive relationship between the size of the research and the references, with a focus on more modern references more than the old references.

More relevant references are needed to be cited in the literature, mostly are of recent publications.

As far as my understanding, there is no limitation on it. It is always helpful to include related literature to support your argument. Again, the quality of the citations are matters too. Otherwise, just mere inclusion of literature may not make any sense...

It is interesting. Most of Journals mentions word limit/page limit and some of them also restrict page's for reference (for example two page for reference). Till now, I have not come across any information where there is restrictions on number of references.

I was taught in my Masters that for work that is 5,000 words in length then use 40-50 references, so its based on your word count. You don`t want to many as you need to show you developed your thinking.

Dear Armrget Kaur

I am surprised to note that number of references should be proportionate to the number of words in a research paper. Just can't imagine.

In my opinion, no limited

Jamal Kaid Mohammed Ali

there is a limitation for references in every journal. i don't think you can use 1000 ref.

The number of references is not important, but its real relation and importance to the article subject, however each journal has its limits in number of references as fare as i know.

I think, is not important, I it depends on volume of document.

I think it is important because this shows how much you have read, your depth of knowledge speaks volume and that you are well informed with a wider literature reads set in the reference.

There should certainly be good reading involved to consult, to refer/ cite and for rendering a good background. However, there are papers which has much more enlisted in references then what is required or what should in fact be meaningful. By reading these publications, its difficult to find out or to paragraph the piece of actual work done by the author. The latter scenario suits better for a review article but not for an actual research paper which is supposed to deal or to incorporate something which is the actual piece of work/ research concerned.

There is not hard and fast rule for such limitation. Nothing wrong you can add as many references that may support your argument. However, always intuition and common sense will guide rather on this.

It depends on the research topic and its novelty, especially in applied research, It requires several references to cover aspects of the research.

I think the answer is Yes, for one significant reason that is when you want to publish your article in a well-known journal like scopus they will limit your paper between 11-15 pages. If you used 1000 references, It will be more than 10 pages without the research body. So, I think we should used references where necessary and not used a lot of references more than need.

Large number references is not always good practise...

According my opinion, In original research paper, the reference number should be around 50 and in review paper should be around 100...

I don't agree with using 1000 references in a single paper...

Every journal have their set guidelines for reference numbers..

Every journal almost sets its guidelines for the above mentioned purpose.

The more references your work has, the better, but you have to check the journal guidelines.

The number of references you can have in your paper has no limit