minimum number of references in a dissertation

The Minimum Number of References in a Dissertation

Teresa j. siskin.

Your dissertation reference list reflects your level of research done in preparation for your writing. While there is no set number of references to supply, there are some helpful guidelines you can follow to ensure you supply an adequately deep and developed list of sources. These tips, from including a broad range of sources to ensuring consistent documentation, can help you construct a well-developed and refined reference list that can make your final dissertation outcomes all the more impressive.

Explore this article

Exhibit Ample Knowledge of Prior Research
Show Depth and Range of Sources
Assess Source Reliability
Reference Uniformity
Additional Considerations

1 Exhibit Ample Knowledge of Prior Research

A key component of a dissertation is a section discussing the state of your research question, which is intended to summarize prior work closely related to your topic. This prior scholarship is an essential component to include in your dissertation references, as it reflects the extent to which you probed prior work in the development of your own, original research question. (See Reference 1, Page 3)

2 Show Depth and Range of Sources

Your dissertation references should also reflect a broad range of sources. For example, you should ensure that you are not providing sources only from one journal or from one scholar’s publications, as this might bias your work or undermine your conclusions.

3 Assess Source Reliability

Your sources should also be assessed for their validity and reliability. Internet sources, for example, unless coming from a reputable journal site or scholarship database, should be omitted, as should articles that are written with explicit bias. You should also cite only primary sources, meaning material taken directly from original documents, rather than secondary sources, which cite these original documents and thus run the risk of altering or misinterpreting the original writer’s meaning. (See Reference 2)

4 Reference Uniformity

Presenting a strong dissertation reference list also involves maintaining a uniform system of reference documentation, such as the American Psychological Association Method, the Chicago Manual of Style or the Modern Language Association Method. You must check as to which method is most accepted in your field -- for example, those working in the social sciences most commonly use the APA format, (See Reference 3) while humanities scholars prefer the Chicago Manual of Style (See Reference 4) -- and then maintain that style’s formatting throughout your writing, reference list and footnotes or endnotes, if applicable. (See Reference 5, Page 7)

5 Additional Considerations

Reviewing the reference list for previously published dissertations in your field can be beneficial, as it gives you both a sense of the scope of references included and access to new sources you might not have previously considered. These mined sources can both amplify your own reference list and contribute to the increasing depth of your scholarship.

1 Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY Library: Primary vs. Secondary Sources
2 American Psychological Association: APA Style
3 Chicago Manual of Style Online: Citation Quick Guide
4 PennState Graduate School: Thesis/Dissertation Guide 2012

About the Author

Teresa J. Siskin has been a researcher, writer and editor since 2009. She holds a doctorate in art history.

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How Many References in a Research Paper?

Junior researchers frequently wonder how many references should be included in their research papers. The common response? “As many as you need.” What exactly does that mean? While we admit there are very few hard-set rules regarding this issue, in this article, we will try to provide more concrete guidelines that will help you assess whether you have enough references in your paper.

Before we do so, let us briefly explain why references matter and whether the number of references you include can project certain perceptions about the quality of your work. There is such a thing as having too many or too few.

Why are research paper references and citations necessary?

References show that you have carefully reviewed the relevant literature and are now contributing something novel to the academic community. You establish authority and credibility when you can critically assess other literature and distinguish your findings from previous works (if any exist). We emphasize “critically assess” in the last sentence because references are only as good as you apply them to your research. Therefore, the famous adage “quality over quantity” is the key to deciding how many references are sufficient.

Likewise, citing your references within the research paper itself (in the form of academic citations ) is crucial in any academic work that makes assertations based on external studies. Failing to cite your sources can result in plagiarism, which even if accidental can still have some devastating consequences for academic researchers hoping to publish their work or finish graduate school.

Number of Sources Used Can Impact Perceptions of Quality

We would be remiss if we didn’t tell you that being at either extreme (having too few or too many references) can reflect poorly on your intellectual aptitude and your study’s validity. Here’s why:

If you don’t have enough references, particularly on a topic familiar to a wide audience, readers may think that you haven’t done enough research into existing literature. Surely someone else has thought about related topics or used similar techniques. If you’re sloppy in conducting your diligence, readers will wonder whether your paper is worth reading. What’s novel and valuable about your paper? Were you just as sloppy with conducting your study? The answers to these questions need to be evident.
Additionally, readers might be concerned that you may have plagiarized by failing to properly cite information. Unless you’re John Nash, who cited only two texts in his seminal 26-page PhD thesis (one of which was to his prior work), ensure that you’ve properly researched the relevant papers and included appropriate citations! Especially, make sure that you have found, read, and included all the latest publications on your topic before finalizing and submitting your own paper—if the drafting process took some time, new literature might have come out in the meantime, and you don’t want to give the editor the impression that you are not on top of the newest developments.
If you have too many references, readers may wonder if you did any original research at all. Unless you’re writing a literature review, your paper’s primary focus should be on your investigation and findings. Don’t bury your hard work under strings of citations and discussion regarding other works. Show your readers what you’ve discovered and how the new information you present fits into or departs from the academic community’s current understanding of your topic.

Additionally, let us highlight the difference between the number of references versus citations. References are the source materials; therefore, each reference should be listed only once in your references section. Citations are meant to identify the source of the information you use in your paper. You can cite a reference multiple times. Therefore, the number of citations you have is typically larger than the number of references an average paper includes. The opposite situation should never happen!

Key Factors Influencing the Number of References You Use

The following are some of the many factors that may influence the number of references you use:

The number of references required for a paper will depend largely on your work’s purpose . For example, literature and systematic reviews are surveys of existing studies. Therefore, their reference lists will be more exhaustive than those of research papers whose primary focus is the current authors’ findings. Indeed, if you examine many journals’ author guidelines , you’ll note that journals have a higher maximum reference limit for review articles than original research papers.
The length of your reference list will also depend on your research paper’s subject matter . For example, if you are writing about a field that is less studied (such as a subfield of neuroparasitology) you may discover that there aren’t many papers to cite. Similarly, newer fields will have fewer published papers that can be referenced. If you find yourself in this situation, review the references used by relevant current literature and see if you can expand your research, and thus your reference list, with valuable content from there.
Another factor will be your institution or journal’s requirements . If you are preparing a dissertation or thesis, double-check your department’s requirements. While rare, they may have specific limits. More commonly, journals restrict the number of references due to printing constraints.
It may happen that you don’t have access to certain literature that could have served as a reference. In such a situation, you may wish to look for an institution that may be able to provide you access to that literature for the purposes of reviewing the content or contact one of the authors directly and ask for a copy.
Given that more papers are being published than ever before in most fields, it is likely that reference lists will grow longer simply because there are more data and discussions of existing data available to cite . Keep track of changes to the size of reference lists in publications related to your field.
Finally, a paper’s length bears some correlation to the number of references.

So how many references should be included?

Below, we provide tips on how to decide if you have enough resources. We also provide some general reminders on how to effectively use references. After all, references are meant to enhance your paper while still maintaining your research as the focal point.

Use academic journals as a guide

One way to gauge how many references you should have is to survey academic journals for your article type in your field. Review their author guidelines for limits on the number of references for your article type, and make sure your reference list complies with those journal restrictions.
Read recent articles relevant to your topic; check how many references other authors have included in their papers for the same article type as yours, and how frequently those works were cited per page.
Keep in mind that the above methods will give you an estimate of how many references you should include overall but will not tell you how many citations you’ll need per page. The latter is impossible to state simply because certain sections may have no citations at all (the results section , for example).

Statistics regarding the number of references and citations

To give you a general idea, the following are some estimates from a couple of studies that examined the citation characteristics of articles published in various disciplines.

According to Milojević’s study encompassing research in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, robotics, ecology, and economics, the highest and average number of references per article page were as follows:

Ecology: highest, ~58; average reference per page, 6;
Math and robotics: highest, ~28; average reference per page, <1; and
Economics: highest, ~ 32; average reference per page, >1 but <2.

The above findings were based on data compiled from the first 20 years of the author’s research. Since then some fields have increased the number of references. Thus, make sure to examine your target journal’s most recent and relevant publications for a better idea of how many references to include based on the specific type of article you plan to write.

In another study by Falagas et al. (2013), medical journals averaged 29 references for articles that were 7.88 pages long (as printed in journals).

Finally, although the sample size was small (63 journals), Gali Halevi observed the following citation trends of a broader range of disciplines.

The average number of references per article was the highest for the social sciences, physics, and astronomy, and arts & humanities (roughly 54 references per article).
On the other hand, health professions and earth and planetary sciences had the fewest references per article at an average of 8 and 17 references, respectively.
Math and engineering averaged at roughly 29 references per article.
Biochemistry, genetics and molecular and other biological sciences averaged at 51.
Hard and natural sciences more frequently cited recent literature while social sciences and math were likely to include older sources.

Note that the Halevi study is limited in size, fails to factor in article type and does little to account for variances across different fields and journals. For example, it is possible that more review articles could have been reviewed for certain fields than others. With that said, we provide the above information to provide a rough estimate.

At the end of the day, please keep in mind the requirements of your institution or target journal and the general trends for your specific article type (by examining the most recent relevant publications).

For additional information regarding journal restrictions on the number of references, read this article on ways to grow your publication list .

Some Dos and Don’ts for Reference Citation

Don’t repeat references within a reference list.
Don’t repeatedly cite yourself. Make sure to balance your discussion with external literature citations.
Be careful about citing old references. The rule of thumb is to go back at most five to six years. Exceptions to this rule should be reserved for “seminal” works relevant to explaining what prompted your research. Roughly 85% of all cited works should be less than five years old.
Be careful not to cite several references in one place without discussing the relevance of each work to your research. In other words, don’t say, “We referred to previous studies in this field (1-7)” unless you later explain how each of reference #s 1-7 apply to your discussion.
Confirm the quality of the work you cite. Are there any ethical issues regarding the paper that would disqualify it as a good source? Do your references come from reputable sources such as respected journals rather than random blogs and website links? Remember that your analysis is only as good as the verifiable information you use to conduct your research.
One of the main purposes of citing existing literature is to show the “knowledge gap” regarding your topic. Therefore, make sure the works you reference naturally lead readers to wonder about the research question you address in your paper. To explain further, think about your favorite fictional story. A successfully written story only reveals the background information needed for the reader to follow along in the story. You’ll rarely see an author waste time writing about how the main character stubbed his toe one day while going to work unless that event relates to an important aspect of the story. Similarly, the references you cite should support the story building you create in your research paper.
Don’t completely ignore the paper that could disprove your hypothesis. You want to show objectivity and that you took a balanced and unbiased approach to conducting your research. Mention the potentially conflicting evidence and explain why you believe it is flawed or inapplicable to your research.
In qualitative research papers, you may have fewer references.
Anything you cite in your paper should be listed in the references section (or reference list). Anything listed as a reference should have been quoted or paraphrased in the text. If either rule is violated, something is wrong.
Finally, remember that a paper will typically have more citations in the Introduction section and Discussion section than in other parts.

Wordvice Academic Resources

If you need help with paraphrasing text from the sources you cite to avoid plagiarism, with different citation styles , or with finding the perfect journal to submit your paper to, then have a look at our collection of articles on the Wordvice academic resources website . We also recommend our professional English editing and proofreading services , including paper editing and academic editing services to ensure that your writing is free of errors before submitting your manuscript to a journal.

/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="minimum number of references in a dissertation"> Cornell University --> Graduate School

Required sections, guidelines, and suggestions.

Beyond those noted on the Formatting Requirements page , the Graduate School has no additional formatting requirements. The following suggestions are based on best practices and historic requirements for dissertations and theses but are not requirements for submission of the thesis or dissertation. The Graduate School recommends that each dissertation or thesis conform to the standards of leading academic journals in your field.

For both master’s and doctoral students, the same basic rules apply; however, differences exist in some limited areas, particularly in producing the abstract and filing the dissertation or thesis.

Information in this guide that pertains specifically to doctoral candidates and dissertations is clearly marked with the term “ dissertation ” or “ doctoral candidates .”
Information pertaining specifically to master’s candidates and theses is clearly marked with the term “ thesis ” or “ master’s candidates .”
All other information pertains to both.

Examples of formatting suggestions for both the dissertation and thesis are available as downloadable templates .

Required? Yes.

Suggested numbering: Page included in overall document, but number not typed on page.

The following format for your title page is suggested, but not required.

The title should be written using all capital letters, centered within the left and right margins, and spaced about 1.5 inches from the top of the page. (For an example, please see the template .)
Carefully select words for the title of the dissertation or thesis to represent the subject content as accurately as possible. Words in the title are important access points to researchers who may use keyword searches to identify works in various subject areas.
Use word substitutes for formulas, symbols, superscripts, Greek letters, etc.
Below the title, at the vertical and horizontal center of the margins, place the following five lines (all centered):

Line 1: A Dissertation [or Thesis]

Line 2: Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School

Line 3: of Cornell University

Line 4: in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Line 5: Doctor of Philosophy [or other appropriate degree]

Center the following three lines within the margins:

Line 2: Primary or Preferred Name [as registered with the University Registrar’s Office and displayed in Student Center]

Line 3: month and year of degree conferral [May, August, December; no comma between month and year]

Copyright Page

Suggested numbering: Page included in overall document, but number not typed on page

The following format for your copyright page is suggested, but not required.

A notice of copyright should appear as the sole item on the page centered vertically and horizontally within the margins: © 20__ [Primary or Preferred Name [as registered with the University Registrar’s Office]. Please note that there is not usually a page heading on the copyright page.
The copyright symbol is a lowercase “c,” which must be circled. (On Macs, the symbol is typed by pressing the “option” and “g” keys simultaneously. If the font does not have the © symbol, type the “c” and circle it by hand. On PCs, in the insert menu, choose “symbol,” and select the © symbol.)
The date, which follows the copyright symbol, is the year of conferral of your degree.
Your name follows the date.

Required? Yes.

Suggested numbering: Page(s) not counted, not numbered

Abstract formats for the doctoral dissertation and master’s thesis differ greatly. The Graduate School recommends that you conform to the standards of leading academic journals in your field.

Doctoral candidates:

TITLE OF DISSERTATION
Student’s Primary or Preferred Name, Ph.D. [as registered with the University Registrar’s Office]
Cornell University 20__ [year of conferral]
Following the heading lines, begin the text of the abstract on the same page.
The abstract states the problem, describes the methods and procedures used, and gives the main results or conclusions of the research.
The abstract usually does not exceed 350 words in length (about one-and-one-half correctly spaced pages—but not more than two pages).

Master’s candidate:

In a thesis, the page heading is simply the word “ABSTRACT” in all capital letters and centered within the margins at the top of the page. (The thesis abstract does not display the thesis title, author’s name, degree, university, or date of degree conferral.)
The abstract should state the problem, describe the methods and procedures used, and give the main results or conclusions.
The abstract usually does not exceed 600 words in length, which is approximately two-and-one-half to three pages of correctly spaced typing.
In M.F.A. theses, an abstract is not required.

Biographical Sketch

Suggested numbering: iii (may be more than one page)

Type number(s) on page(s).

The following content and format are suggested:

The biographical sketch is written in third-person voice and contains your educational background. Sometimes additional biographical facts are included.
As a page heading, use “BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH” in all capital letters, centered on the page.
Number this page as iii.

Required? Optional.

Suggested numbering: iv (may be more than one page)

The dedication page is not required and can contain whatever text that you would like to include. Text on this page does not need to be in English.

Acknowledgements

Suggested numbering: v (may be more than one page)

The following content and format are suggested, not required.

The acknowledgements may be written in first-person voice. If your research has been funded by outside grants, you should check with the principal investigator of the grant regarding proper acknowledgement of the funding source. Most outside funding sources require some statement of acknowledgement of the support; some also require a disclaimer from responsibility for the results.
As a page heading, use “ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS” in all capital letters, centered on the page.

Suggested numbering: vi (may be more than one page)

The following are suggestions.

As a page heading, use “TABLE OF CONTENTS” in all capital letters and centered on the page.
List the sections/chapters of the body of the dissertation or thesis. Also, list preliminary sections starting with the biographical sketch. (Title page, copyright page, and abstract are not listed.)
For theses and dissertations, the conventional format for page numbers is in a column to the right of each section/chapter title. The first page of each chapter/section is stated with a single number. Table of contents usually do not include a range of page numbers, such as 7-22.
The table of contents is often single-spaced.

Two-Volume Theses or Dissertations

If the dissertation or thesis consists of two volumes, it is recommended, but not required, that you list “Volume II” as a section in the table of contents.

List of Figures, Illustrations, and Tables

Suggested numbering: vii (may be more than one page)

If included, type number(s) on page(s).

As described in the formatting requirements above, figures and tables should be consecutively numbered. The Graduate School recommends that you conform to the styles set by the leading academic journals in your field. The items below are formatting suggestions based on best practices or historic precedents.

Table of contents format:

As a page heading, use “LIST OF FIGURES,” “LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS,” or “LIST OF TABLES” in all capital letters, centered on the page.
There should be separate pages for “LIST OF FIGURES,” “LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS,” or “LIST OF TABLES” even if there is only one example of each.
The list should contain enough of the titles or descriptions so readers can locate items using the list. (It may not be necessary to include entire figure/illustration/table captions.)
The list should contain the page number on which each figure, illustration, or table is found, as in a table of contents.
The list of figures/illustrations/tables may be single-spaced.

Page format:

Figures/illustrations/tables should be placed as close as possible to their first mention in the text. They may be placed on a page with no text above or below, or placed directly into the text. If a figure/illustration/table is placed directly into the text, text may appear above or below the figure/illustration/table; no text may wrap around the figure/illustration/table.
If a figure/illustration/table appears on a page without other text, it should be centered vertically within the page margins. Figures/illustrations/tables should not be placed at the end of the chapter or at the end of the dissertation or thesis.
Figure/illustration/table numbering should be either continuous throughout the dissertation or thesis, or by chapter (e.g. 1.1, 1.2; 2.1, 2.2, etc.). The word “Figure,” “Illustration,” or “Table” must be spelled out (not abbreviated), and the first letter must be capitalized.
A caption for a figure/illustration should be placed at the bottom of the figure/illustration. However, a caption for a table must be placed above the table.
If the figure/illustration/table, not including the caption, takes up the entire page, the figure/illustration/table caption should be placed alone on the preceding page and centered vertically and horizontally within the margins. (When the caption is on a separate page, the List of Figures or List of Illustrations or List of Tables can list the page number containing the caption.)
If the figure/illustration/table, not including the caption, takes up more than two pages, it should be preceded by a page consisting of the caption only. The first page of the figure/illustration/table must include the figure/illustration/table (no caption), and the second and subsequent pages must also include, at the top of the figure/illustration/table, words that indicate its continuance—for example, “Figure 5 (Continued)”—and on these pages the caption is omitted.
If figures/illustrations/tables are too large, they may be reduced slightly so as to render a satisfactory product or they must either be split into several pages or be redone. If a figure/illustration/table is reduced, all lettering must be clear, readable, and large enough to be legible. All lettering, including subscripts, must still be readable when reduced 25% beyond the final version. All page margin requirements must be maintained. Page numbers and headings must not be reduced.
While there are no specific rules for the typographic format of figure/illustration/table captions, a consistent format should be used throughout the dissertation or thesis.
The caption of a figure/illustration/table should be single-spaced, but then captions for all figures/illustrations/tables must be single-spaced.
Horizontal figures/illustrations/tables should be positioned correctly—i.e., the top of the figure/illustration/table will be at the left margin of the vertical page of the dissertation or thesis (remember: pages are bound on the left margin). Figure/illustration/table headings/captions are placed with the same orientation as the figure/illustration/table when they are on the same page as the figure/illustration/table. When they are on a separate page, headings and captions are always placed in vertical orientation, regardless of the orientation of the figure/illustration/table. Page numbers are always placed as if the figure/illustration/table was vertical on the page.

Photographs should be treated as illustrations. To be considered archival, photographs must be black-and-white. (If actual color photographs are necessary, they should be accompanied by black-and-white photographs of the same subject.) Color photos obtained digitally do not need to be accompanied by a black-and-white photograph. Make a high-resolution digital version of each photograph and insert it into your electronic document, following the guideline suggestions for positioning and margins.

Optional Elements

List of abbreviations.

As a page heading, use “LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS” in all capital letters, centered on the page.

List of Symbols

As a page heading, use “LIST OF SYMBOLS” in all capital letters, centered on the page.

Suggested numbering: xi (may be more than one page)

As a page heading, use “PREFACE” in all capital letters, centered on the page.

Body of the Dissertation or Thesis: Text

Suggested numbering: Begin page number at 1

Text (required)
Appendix/Appendices (optional)
Bibliography, References, or Works Cited (required)

Please note that smaller font size may be appropriate for footnotes or other material outside of the main text. The following suggestions are based on best practice or historic precedent, but are not required.

Chapter headings may be included that conform to the standard of your academic field.
Textual notes that provide supplementary information, opinions, explanations, or suggestions that are not part of the text must appear at the bottom of the page as footnotes. Lengthy footnotes may be continued on the next page. Placement of footnotes at the bottom of the page ensures they will appear as close as possible to the referenced passage.

Appendix (or Appendices)

An appendix (-ces) is not required for your thesis or dissertation. If you choose to include one, the following suggestions are based on best practice or historic precedent.

As a page heading, use “APPENDIX” in all capital letters, centered on the page.
Place in an appendix any material that is peripheral, but relevant, to the main text of the dissertation or thesis. Examples could include survey instruments, additional data, computer printouts, details of a procedure or analysis, a relevant paper that you wrote, etc.
The appendix may include text that does not meet the general font and spacing requirements of the other sections of the dissertation or thesis.

Bibliography (or References or Works Cited)

A bibliography, references, or works cited is required for your thesis or dissertation. Please conform to the standards of leading academic journals in your field.

As a page heading, use “BIBLIOGRAPHY” (or “REFERENCES” or “WORKS CITED”) in all capital letters, centered on the page. The bibliography should always begin on a new page.
Bibliographies may be single-spaced within each entry but should include 24 points of space between entries.

Suggested numbering: Continue page numbering from body

If you choose to include a glossary, best practices and historic precedent suggest using a page heading, use “GLOSSARY” in all capital letters, centered on the page.

Suggested numbering: Continue page numbering from glossary

If you choose to include one, best practices and historic precedent suggest using a page heading, use “INDEX” in all capital letters, centered on the page.

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How many references should I have?

Use as many references as you need You’ll need an appropriate amount for your academic level – this will vary

Reference everything you cite If you use an idea, cite and reference it

Ask your tutor They may have guidance for you on how much reading they expect you to do

Students sometimes worry that there is an optimum number of references that they need to cite.

There’s no right or wrong answer answer as to how many references you need – it depends on how many you’ve cited in your writing!

The most important thing is that you don’t plagiarise. Make sure you include references for everything that you’ve cited in the text, so that it’s clear where your information has come from.

Depending on what you’re writing, you might have only a few. As long as they are appropriate for your level of study, and you have enough evidence to back your arguments, you shouldn’t worry. Lab reports, for example, might have relatively few references because you are writing up work that you have done in the labs.

You can also look at the marking criteria for your assignment as that might indicate on what is or isn’t sufficient. If in doubt, check with whoever set you the work as they might be able to give you a clearer idea.

Remember, you are looking to provide proof that you have done the research. Citations and referencing point your readers to the sources you have used in your research process.

How it works

How to Best Use References in a Dissertation

Published by Alvin Nicolas at August 12th, 2021 , Revised On September 20, 2023

“In a dissertation, references refer to the sources and citations used to support and validate the research.”

They provide evidence, scholarly context, and acknowledgment of the works consulted during the study. References typically include books, journal articles, websites, and other relevant publications cited in the dissertation.

Writing a dissertation can be challenging especially if you haven’t had the chance to write a dissertation before. You need to look into relevant literature, analyze past researches, conduct surveys, interviews, etc. and also reference and cite information that you’ve gathered from different sources.

Many students are usually confused regarding which sources should be mentioned and which be omitted. This confusion arises because they are unaware of the fact as to which sources are credible, reliable, and authentic and which are not.

Thus, the question always remains ‘How to Best Use References in a Dissertation’?

While there is no single way to best use references in a dissertation, students should have a clear understanding of the concept of the use of credible and reliable sources in their dissertation paper.

In today’s world where changes take place frequently, some newspaper articles published online are also categorized as authentic and credible sources.

Information and/or data can be extracted from these articles and included in dissertations with proper use of a citation.

To make sure that references are used appropriately in dissertations, here are a few ways that you can follow:

Research Relevant Studies

Depending on the topic of your dissertation , make sure to research and look into similar researches that have been conducted in the past. In addition to this, you could also read, analyze and review researches that have utilized the same model or talk about the same theory as you are applying in your dissertation.

Doing so will add a lot of value to your dissertation and you will be able to include models and theories with correct references and citations.

Include Recent Researches

As important as relevant studies are for your dissertation, including recent studies only is equally important. Using reference in a dissertation that belong to the past five to ten years are acceptable; however, using references of the 1980s or 1990s is not recommended.

The main reason being changes in time, settings, environment, participants, etc. All these factors contribute a lot towards accurate conclusions, thus they are regarded as essential when using a study for reference purposes.

Also, writing a dissertation in the current setting, considering the current environment, only recent researches must be included in the dissertation. This gives readers the idea that the research that has been conducted is recent.

Also Read: How to avoid plagiarism in an academic paper

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Cite/Reference while Writing

Many of us are guilty of extracting information from various sources when writing without noting down the reference. As a result, we lose track of that particular reference and end up spending hours looking for that specific article or research.

Thus, you should always note down the reference as soon as you refer to it in your dissertation or when you include data or information. In this manner, you will have a complete list of references that you’ve used when you’ve finished writing your dissertation.

Also, doing so will save you a lot of your time, and you will be able to finish your dissertation without any delays.

Know when and where to Cite

Remember the hours you spent looking for the statistics or the specific piece of information that you mentioned in your dissertation, but forgot to cite? This usually happens when the deadline is nearing, and we’re in a hurry to complete our dissertation.

However, you should always keep in mind that when you rush things, you tend to spend a lot more time than needed. Thus, whenever you’re mentioning a fact, statistics, or a particular piece of information that is exact and accurate, always cite it.

Not doing so will keep your readers in doubt whether the statistic or number mentioned is accurate or not. On the other hand, if you cite those exact numbers, readers will have the impression that you have done your research, and they can even crosscheck it by referring to your citation.

Choose the Correct Referencing Style

There are various referencing styles. Depending on your university and other requirements, the right referencing style is chosen and conveyed to you.

What you should make sure of is understanding the required referencing style, so you can cite accurately. A Harvard style referencing style example includes a reference list with the name of authors, the journal or book name, the publisher’s name, and the date and the page number.

When citing the exact words of an author or when defining a theory or model, make sure that you include the page number as they are required for direct quotations.

If, in case you do not understand any of the referencing styles, you should either follow the guidelines provided by your tutor or you can also search the internet for your required referencing style.

With time, new editions of referencing styles have been introduced to make sure that all thesis and dissertations follow the same pattern. Thus, make it a practice to crosscheck your referencing style from the internet to make sure that you’re following the latest format and edition.

Proofread your Reference List

This is one of the most important, but often most ignored aspects when looking at how to use references correctly. Your reference list should be sorted as soon as you finish writing your dissertation.

For instance, it should be alphabetically arranged, the number of references should be appropriate for the dissertation, and should be free from all types of errors such as formatting, grammatical and style .

The correct style should be followed, the reference list should be properly formatted and proofread to eliminate all errors. An ideal list of reference examples includes correct mention of the author name, year of publication, and name of the book.

The publisher’s name should be italicized and the page number should also be mentioned. For academic journals, mentioning volume and issue number is mandatory. All these aspects should be considered to make sure that an accurate reference list is prepared for your dissertation.

Crosscheck your Citations

When citing your dissertation, you need to make sure that your text corresponds with the in-text citation that you’re including. Not doing so will make your research unreliable and unauthentic.

Readers will get an impression that the in-text citations have been included just for the sake of it, instead of being related to the text and information that is being mentioned.

Thus, the best in-text citation example includes the name of the author along with the year of publication. If there is a direct quote or a definition included in the exact words of the author, then the page number must be also indicated while citing.

Make sure that all your in-text citations are in line with the information that has been presented and discussed in the paper.

Number of References to be Used

‘How many references should I use for my dissertation? This is a question that most students face. They usually get confused when it comes to the number of references that should be used in a dissertation. There’s no right number of references that should be used in a dissertation.

It depends on the topic, the academic level of the dissertation, and the literature review that is being presented.

Also, the models and theories used in the paper contribute to the total number of references. Ideally, it is recommended that every paragraph of 100 words or more should have a reference; however, this is not required and mandatory in all cases.

The literature review is usually the chapter that uses the most references. This helps in formulating a dissertation that is not only informative but is backed by credible resources as well.

Referencing a dissertation is an easy task if done in the right manner. To answer the question, ‘how to best use references in a dissertation, you need to make sure that you’ve collected the right sources and are referring to credible and reliable information only.

Once you’ve sorted your references, you’re on your way to right an authentic dissertation. The literature review is an important aspect of every dissertation for mentioning relevant theories, models, and information. Thus, this section is critical when it comes to referencing. You should make sure that the models and theories are referenced appropriately, and all references are recent.

If you’re still unsure of whether you’re using references in the right manner or not, or you’re seeking help with referencing your dissertation, get in touch with our professional dissertation writing services .

At ResearchProspect, we make sure that your dissertation is properly referenced and accurately cited. All our information is up to date, and we make sure that only recent references are included in the dissertation to leave a lasting impression on the readers. Contact us today and leave your referencing worries to us!

FAQs About References in a Dissertation

Can i cite old research papers in my dissertation.

Old papers are usually outdated in terms of significance and impact. Therefore, you must look for recent papers to cite in your dissertation.

Why is it important to cite/ reference while writing?

Without citation, it looks like you are presenting someone else’s words as your views idea, which will eventually count as plagiarism .

Moreover, the citations increase the credibility and accuracy of the information presented in the paper.

Which is the correct referencing style?

There are many referencing styles available to pick from, such as MLA, APA, Harvard referencing style , etc. You must check with your university preferences to choose one. However, most UK universities prefer Harvard referencing style.

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How to cite a dissertation in APA Style

How to Cite a Dissertation in APA Style | Format & Examples

Published on December 16, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on December 27, 2023.

The format for citing someone else’s dissertation or thesis in APA Style depends on whether the thesis is available from a database, published somewhere else (e.g. on a university archive or personal website), or unpublished (only available in print form directly from the author or university).

To cite a dissertation or thesis from a database, use the following format. In the square brackets, specify the type of dissertation or thesis and the university. As with other database sources, no URL or DOI is included.

Citing a dissertation published elsewhere, citing an unpublished dissertation in apa style.

To cite a dissertation or thesis published in a university archive (often in PDF form ) or on a personal website, the format differs in that no publication number is included, and you do list a URL.

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minimum number of references in a dissertation

To cite an unpublished dissertation (one you got directly from the author or university in print form), add “Unpublished” to the bracketed description, and list the university at the end of the reference, outside the square brackets.

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How Many References for A Dissertation Are Necessary?

The dissertation has no value if you do not mention the correct reference. But the question that bothers most students is: what is the valid number of references in a dissertation? So, reference in any content or assignment is vital, regardless of whether the answer is the direct quote the student used. The references in a dissertation list the level of studies and research you have done to prepare the right piece of writing. However, there is no fixed number reference in a dissertation. It does not mean you ignore the value of references in a dissertation or add too little or too much.

In this blog, we offer suggestions to follow and assure you of the correct number of references in a dissertation.

Value of References in Dissertation

So before we go forward and look for the correct number of references in a dissertation, we will find its value. We learn it through examples. If you visit Shibuya Street in Japan, Tokyo on Mindat, and plan to scream, “The world is going to end in 24 hours,” Will anybody listen to you? Just ignore whether they believe you; they do not even bother to stop and correct you.

Imagine you did the same with the facts and points you wrote in your dissertation without reference. On the other hand, if you write the same poems and facts with many references in a dissertation, then everyone will benefit from those points.

Let us understand the reference idea in more detail. In short, references result from previous studies or research work performed by scholars, which one adds to their dissertation. Why is that so? It is because:

1. To Evade Plagiarism

It is the act of using someone else’s idea or work without giving them due credit. So, by reference and dissertation. You acknowledge that you know their job and do not intend to copy their ideas.

2. To Give Praise to Other Scholars

When you state the source, you praise the work of the person who wrote that content or paper. This is vital because it tells that you, as a researcher, respect your job. Also, you need to take credit for other works.

3. To Support the Arguments

When you quote references in a dissertation, you offer proof to support the claims. This is vital because it reveals that your dissertation is well-researched.

4. To Show the Knowledge of a Field

When one cites a medley of sources, they indicate that they are aware of the recent research in the field. It is vital because it reveals that they are a skilful researcher and their work needs reading.

5. To Allow The Readers to Know More

When writers cite references in a dissertation, they offer their readers the data they require to learn about the subject. It is crucial because it permits the readers to confirm the facts and to know more about the subject.

Additionally, reference in dissertations is vital in papers because it is the demand of most colleges. Many colleges have a specific policy for references in dissertations. Students who ignore those guidelines may feel the dissertation rejection.

How Many References In the Dissertation Are a Must?

So, here comes the main thing: having many references in a dissertation is a must. So, there is no fixed number, depending on various factors. These factors consist of:

1. Degree Level: References in Dissertation

So, if you are talking about the degree level, then it is divided into three parts:

Bachelors: A bachelor’s level consists of words from 10,000–12,000. Hence, 45–50 references will likely be required for this kind of count, and the highest 100 references in the dissertation will be the right bar to add references to.
Masters: At Master Level, a dissertation contains words, beginning at 15,000 with a maximum of 25,000 words. For this, 50–95 or 100 citations will likely be suitable.
PhD: Here, a dissertation consists of 50,000 words or more. A minimum of 150 references in a dissertation will be required for the PhD level, with a maximum of 200 references. It is the best benchmark.

2. The Topic of the Dissertation

Here comes the next point that determines the number of references in a dissertation. It also depends on the idea of the dissertation. So, if your dissertation’s statement or topic is new, you are still looking for relevant references. Hence, there needs to be more reference in these cases in the identification.

In this situation, the college or institute rejects the dissertation topic and asks you to pick another one. Why do they reject the topic? At the student stage, it is not advisable to do independent research.

If students are stuck on the topic of a dissertation, then they look for the London Dissertations UK services. These services help them to create compelling content with the correct number of references in a dissertation.

3. Academic Demand

So, the right number of references in a dissertation this point is the last. Some colleges have different demands for references in dissertations. Some colleges permit only 25 references in dissertations for master’s degrees. On the other hand, 50 references in a dissertation are needed; otherwise, they reject the work. It also depends on the type and topic, such as quantitative and qualitative data. These factors can influence the cited source.

Tips for References in A Dissertation

Here are a few tips for referencing the sources. Let’s find it out in more detail.

Pick a citation style and adhere to it. There are several various styles, like Chicago, MLA, and APA. Pick a style that a college uses throughout the paper.
Also, mention all of the sources. This consists of references that you mention directly or paraphrase.
Take help from tools like Zotero to add citations in your dissertations.

The correct number of references in a dissertation depends on various factors like the degree level, the demand of the colleges, and the topic. But if you face any issues with the writing, we advise you to go for writing services. Also, keep in touch with the supervisor; he will guide you on writing and quoting the source in the paper. Hopefully, this guide clarified how many references you should include in your dissertations.

How Many References Should a Research Paper Have? Study of 96,685 Articles

I analyzed a random sample of 96,685 full-text research papers, uploaded to PubMed Central between the years 2016 and 2021, in order to answer the question:

How many references should you cite when writing a research article?

I used the BioC API to download the data (see the References section below).

Here’s a summary of the key findings

1- The average number of references for a research paper is 45 , with 90% of research papers having between 8 and 102 references. However, this number depends a lot on study design . For instance, a systematic review typically has 49 references while a case report has only 24.

2- As a rule of thumb, consider citing 1 reference for every 95 words (or 4 sentences) .

3- The more research you do will be reflected in the number of references you use in your paper, since high-quality articles usually have 5 more references than the median .

How many references does a typical article have?

The histogram below shows that most research papers have between 25 to 50 references, and only a few exceed 100:

Histogram showing that most articles have between 0 and 100 references and only a few have more than 100 references.

Because the distribution has a right tail, the median number of references becomes a more reliable metric than the mean. Here are a few other numbers that summarize the data:

From this table we can conclude that:

The median research paper has 39 references, and 50% of papers have between 25 and 56 references. An article can have as few as 1 reference as a minimum, and 911 references as a maximum.

Next, let’s see if the number of references depends on the study design.

Should the study design influence the number of references you use?

The table below shows that:

1- Secondary study designs (systematic reviews and meta-analyses) have the highest number of references (median = 49), which is to be expected as these articles review a large body of information.

2- Experimental, quasi-experimental and analytical designs typically have between 35 and 39 references.

3- Descriptive designs (case reports and case series) have the lowest number of references (median ≈ 25), which also makes sense as these describe the clinical story of a single (or a few) patient(s) and generally have a very short literature review section.

How often should you cite in a research paper?

Some journals may specify the maximum number of citations allowed. For instance, Nature allows articles to have at most 30 references in the main text [ Source ]. So make sure to check the authorship guidelines of the journal where you want to submit.

That being said, often is the case where we ask ourselves: am I taking too much information from outside sources? or maybe too few? So I would argue that it would be useful to know, for a given article size, how many references to cite.

If we measure the length of all the articles in our dataset combined and divide it by the total number of references, we get the following numbers:

On average, 1 reference is cited for every 95 words, that is 1 reference for every 4 sentences. In terms of paragraphs, an article has approximately 1.5 references for each paragraph.

Here’s a table that shows the median number of references cited for each word count category:

Does using more references make your article better?

Hypothesis 1: It is well-known that citing more resources is usually associated with more in-depth research, therefore, we would expect high-quality articles to include a higher number of references.

Hypothesis 2: Some experts believe that a good writing habit is to keep the number of references to a minimum (see: Essentials of Writing Biomedical Research Papers by Mimi Zeiger), so according to this hypothesis, high-quality articles should have, on average, fewer references.

Let’s find out what researchers are doing in practice and which hypothesis our data support.

In order to answer the question, I collected the journal impact factor (JIF) for 71,579 articles and divided the dataset into 2 groups:

research papers published in low impact journals (JIF ≤ 3): this subset consisted of 34,758 articles
research papers published in high impact journals (JIF > 3): this subset consisted of 36,821 articles

After controlling for study design, the group with JIF ≤ 3 had a median number of references of 37, while the group with JIF > 3 had a median of 44.

Remember that the median article overall had 39 references (as we saw above), so based on these results, we can conclude that:

High-quality articles, in general, have about 5 more references than the median article. So a comprehensive literature review and a more in-depth discussion section can make the difference between a good and an excellent research article.

Comeau DC, Wei CH, Islamaj Doğan R, and Lu Z. PMC text mining subset in BioC: about 3 million full text articles and growing, Bioinformatics , btz070, 2019.

How Do I Reference?

Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism

First Online: 19 October 2023

Cite this chapter

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Bartek Buczkowski ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4146-3664 4

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References are an important part of your dissertation, and you may need anywhere between 20 and 200 references, possibly more depending on the length of your thesis. But it is important that you reference appropriately and correctly, whether this is in the in-text citations or the list of references at the end of your thesis. This chapter explains the differences between a reference list and a bibliography. You will also want to avoid the risk of plagiarism, and this is explained, to help you ensure that you write your dissertation entirely in your own words.

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Cottrell S (2008) The study skills handbook. Palgrave Macmillan, London

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How many references is enough?

Some reflections on why more references isn't always better, but how strategic referencing might help

Anne-Wil Harzing - Sat 30 May 2020 10:40 (updated Sat 15 Apr 2023 07:23)

Like most senior academics I am reviewing a lot of papers, both for journals where I am on the editorial board and for my junior colleagues in the context of my staff development work at Middlesex . Many of these papers have sentences followed (or interrupted in the middle) by a long and sometimes very long string of references. Most of these papers had well over 100 references in total, which might even lead the paper to be inaccurately classified as a review article by the Web of Science . So I started wondering: How many references is enough?

More isn't always better

My "rule of thumb" has always been to use a maximum of three references to support a particular statement. The role of a literature review is to provide a targeted review of the literature. In my view, there are several reasons why it is wise not to use too many references:

It really disturbs the flow of the paper.
It may provide an implicit signal that your work isn't very interesting or important, as so much has already been published in the field. This means you need to work harder to convince the reviewers you are making a unique contribution.
It shows that you may not be able to distinguish what the key works in a particular field are and thus are not really that well versed in the literature.
It does make you look like a bit of a student as having lots of references is quite typical of PhD theses. So it might lead the reviewer to think you are an immature academic writer, which is something you would want to avoid.
The more references you use (beyond the ones that are really needed to substantiate your argument), the higher the risk that one of the reviewer knows the work you cite better than you do and disagrees with you that this work supports the statement(s) you are making. This might lead the reviewers to be more critical of the rest of the paper as well.

The other side of the coin

On the other hand, there are also good reasons to not be stingy with references.

You need to demonstrate your thorough knowledge of the field by citing enough of the key references. If the field has been very active, this might mean referencing quite a lot of studies.
You need to cite the "key people" in a particular field for both intrinsic (this is what is expected in a literature review) and extrinsic reasons (they might be your reviewers and might be annoyed if you have missed their work). However, unless they are intrinsically important, don't "slip in" some references to people you think might be your reviewers by adding them to a block of other references. I have lost count of the number of times a reference to my work really had nothing to do with the content (see also Are referencing errors undermining our scholarship and credibility? ).
You need to show you are part of the journal "conversation" (see also Why does my paper get a desk-reject time and again? ). Again do this only when the references are intrinsically important. Editors are not stupid, they can spot easily that you have just added references to their journal last minute after having been rejected at your preferred journal.

General recommendations

As always, looking at your target journal will give you a better feel of the preferences in your sub-discipline (for details of this principle see the slides here: Middlesex University Summer 2019 writing boot-camp ). When doing a final read of the paper, you might also want to reconsider deleting references that you are only citing once and only in connection with a lot of others. These are clearly not essential to your paper. For further guidelines, refer to these - slightly edited - responses to the question: How many references do I need at https://academia.stackexchange.com/ (a very useful site). For general guidance on when to use references see one of my first white papers: Writing coursework assignments

Answer 1: The short and somewhat unsatisfactory answer is: enough

There is no formal limit but obviously too many becomes impractical. If you can reference a huge number of references for a single statement (sentence) it is normal to pick one or possibly a few by using a format indicating these references are just examples, "e.g., Smith et al., 1943; Turner and Anthony, 1963)", "[some statement] by, for example, Smith et al. (1943) and Turner and Anthony (1963)." Exactly when it is reasonable to show examples and when one actually have to show all references is a matter of context. If you, for example, have a series of references that together build up some matter and where none is more important than the other and none summarize the other, it could be necessary to list them all regardless of how many there are. I suggest you try to look at a number of different papers of a similar type (literature review) to the one you are writing to see how others handle such instances. [...] The main point of this is to know when it is sufficient to list only (good) examples rather than all possible references. This is of course a matter of training and learning to assess when which format is appropriate. It is therefore necessary to assess when papers simply duplicate each other (from whatever view point you reference) or when they each contribute something unique that merits their reference.

Answer 2: Don't over do it

A literature review in an article is meant as a general reference, so the reader can get "up to speed" in the state of the art of the topic under discussion. In your thesis, you have to show that you are able to search the literature, you understand it, and are able to extract the important information. If you put every single article, you are not fulfilling any. On the one hand, the reader will not know what are the most relevant articles for your work. On the other front, anyone can get all the articles published in a subfield in the last couple of years and write a sentence, based on the abstract and the figures, in just a few days. In short, show that you have comprehended the literature by finding the most informative subset of articles.

Want to know more about referencing?

I can highly recommend this article by Matthieu Mansard in European Management Review, who distinguishes four key motives of referencing: epistemic, rhetoric, symbolic, and economic.

Mandard, M (2021). On the shoulders of giants? Motives to cite in management research. European Management Review , DOI: abs/10.1111/emre.12495

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How many sources are enough? Six questions on breadth and depth of literature reviews

The first question I posed in the title of my blog post is one that all of my students (undergraduate and graduate) and most of my research assistants ask me: how do I know when I’ve read enough for a literature review? The answer is never clear cut, unfortunately. I am someone who loves reading, and who needs to read broadly because his own work is interdisciplinary . I’m also quite systematic in how I read , and I prefer to err on the side of having TOO MANY sources rather than be accused of not knowing the field.

I also realize not everyone has the time to be on top of the literature , particularly with teaching, service, family and caring and research obligations. I am going to answer the top six questions I get asked on breadth and depth of literature reviews, and in doing so, I am going to suggest a few shortcuts that may help narrowing a literature review search and finding the “sweet spot” where you’ve read enough that you feel confident enough to start writing your paper, chapter or thesis.

1. How many sources should I read for my literature review? This is an absurd question that is prompted by arbitrarily setting a random number of sources as “enough”. If you read the right five sources, you’ve probably covered a full field. But if you read 40 sources that all tend to pull in different directions, you’ll still be unable to cover all the sources.

Here’s my totally non-scientific take for coursework-related materials: a final research paper should at least use 13 additional sources to those in the syllabus (one additional paper per week) for an undergraduate class, and an in-depth literature review for a graduate course should be in the realm of 26 (2 additional papers per week) to 39 (3 additional papers per week for PhD students) . If somebody writes a final paper for my courses that only use the readings we did during the semester, it shows they didn’t go any further and I’ll probably penalize them.

2. Where do I get sources for my literature review if I am starting up a new topic? Well, here are a couple of strategies:

There are 2 clear sources of citations for literature reviews: (1) papers that are systematic reviews or meta-reviews pic.twitter.com/sYCUGv3kg0 — Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) June 18, 2017

Read literature summaries and reviews published in journals. There’s plenty of journals now that provide reviews of the literature. Three I’m well aware of are WIRES (Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews) and Geography Compass, as well as Progress in Human Geography. When reading Progress in Human Geography, you probably want to look for the “Progress Reports”.
Search for “a review of the literature” or “a meta-review” type of article s (either Google Scholar or other online databases). These articles will usually provide a pretty extensive range of sources. Given their goal and scope, they’re also probably comprehensive enough. Meta-reviews tend to be more synthetic and provide a research agenda and specific research questions that need to be looked at in future research.
Ask specialists (or look for their work) for key citations from where you can do citation tracing . For example, if I were to do a search on water ethics, I would ask Christiana Peppard, Jeremy Schmidt, Lucy Rodina for suggestions. Or I would look for articles citing them. If I were to do something on climate politics, I’d look for Kathryn Harrison, Sarah Burch, Max Boykoff, Mat Patterson.

(2) papers that are "a literature review of" (this should be obvious, but a lot of people don't seem to know this!) pic.twitter.com/T1xaK2yvv9 — Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) June 18, 2017

Also the scoping review, a derivative of systematic reviews that is meant to be broader and more exploratory: https://t.co/WQjEpnuZR3 — AJ Wray (@WrayAJ) June 18, 2017

3. “When should I stop reading and start writing?”

My answer to that question is: you should be reading AND writing . Apparently, a lot of people feel like they need to Read All The Things before they can write a literature review. That’s why I always suggest that when you process a reading (a PDF or a printed source), you should generate at the very minimum a row entry in your Excel conceptual synthesis , and a synthetic note (or a rhetorical precis ). Obviously, you gain a lot more if you write a full-fledged memo , but you may want to wait to write the memo up until you’ve read a few sources. But you should ALWAYS be writing as you read. You may not assemble the full literature review , but at least you can start with an annotated bibliography .

4. How do I know when to stop reading/researching/seeking more sources? This is again a very tough question. Having mapped a very broad survey of the literature on informal waste picking, I can assure you that I felt I could not stop even after reading 50 articles. There is just simply too much published. But one of the reasons why I encourage my students to stop when they reach conceptual saturation (e.g. when they start seeing the same themes repeated over and over again) is because I don’t think you gain too much, marginally, from reading yet another paper on the same topic but using a different case study.

For example, I recently wrote a series of memorandums on the urban commons. I had basically mapped the entire body of works on urban commons using the first 10 citations I found on Google Scholar. However, I wanted to see how much more I could go in depth on the topic. What I found was that there were many case studies, but all using the same conceptual framework. So that’s when I stopped. When I saw that basically every other paper was a variation of the same central 10 ones, but using different case studies. I added those sources to my bibliography, but I didn’t need to incorporate them to my literature review.

Another way to respond to this question is: read enough to answer your questions properly.

The two biggest questions that probably would encompass the previous ones are related to breadth and depth.

5. How far reaching should your literature review be? Scoping a literature review, as Dr. Pat Thomson shows here , is not an easy task. It requires us to search through many months or even years of published literature. I always do Google Scholar searches at least 7 years into the past (e.g. 2010 articles would totally be welcome, as would be books published in 2010) because of the very long lag-time that exists between submission, acceptance and publication. My citation tracing process also looks at the last 7 years of scholarship of key authors.

Then you have the other associated question – what about the “seminal” (I prefer the word fundamental) articles or books?

For me, this is the most challenging component. When I know a field very well (for example, agenda-setting theory in public policy), I can easily decide which authors I will be seeking (Stuart Soroka, Michael Howlett, Baumgartner and Jones, Kingdon). If I am doing policy design, I’ll go with Helen Ingram, Ann Schneider, etc. And then based on doing a citation tracing exercise , I will go to those younger scholars who are citing these key authors. But again, this requires you to know the field already.

This is where a supervisor, a coauthor, a colleague or a trusted scholar on Twitter may be helpful with narrowing the search scope. You can ask “ who are the key authors I should be reading on Topic A ” or “ which are the key citations I should be looking at to get a grasp of Field B “. And then use those authors to create a map of the literature .

And the last question, which just about everyone asks me:

6. Do I need to do an in-depth reading of All The Things? This is completely a question that has arbitrary answers and a broad range of parameters to work around. It also depends on what type of literature review you are writing. If you are, for example, preparing your doctoral comprehensive examinations, you DO want to read EVERYTHING and do so IN DEPTH . You need to demonstrate that you know your field of study, broadly and deeply.

However, if you are writing a literature review, for example, of agenda-setting theory and its applications to health policy, you may want to read in depth 5-10 articles on health policy, 5-7 articles on agenda-setting theory, and then start writing from there. Again, in-depth reading is correlated with the extent and degree to which you need to demonstrate that you know a field.

My method, as most people may have noticed, is usually as follows:

I read 5-10 citations that I find key. This reading is usually in-depth.
I create the set of questions I want to answer. I choose 3-5 citations around each question. All the reading associated with these questions I do using the AIC method , or skimming and scribbling unless I find key ones that need to be read in depth.
I write a memorandum for each one of the questions I’m trying to answer. In this memorandum, I assemble a mini-literature review that answers the question.
I fuse all the memorandums into a larger document where I have mapped out how each question (and answer) relates to the overall topic.
I read my entire literature review and restart with citation tracing until I reach concept saturation .

Hopefully this post will help those who are struggling with literature reviews, as the summer approaches! You may also want to revisit my Literature Review posts .

You can share this blog post on the following social networks by clicking on their icon.

Posted in academia , research .

Tagged with literature review .

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – June 17, 2017

5 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post .

Thank you so much for helping me to demistify the concept of approaching/ attempting to write a LitReview. This has helped me so much

So glad this is helpful!

This is exactly what I needed today, thank you!!

This was a great article! Thank you so much for sharing the knowledge.

I am currently on a year out from studying at undergrad level due to ill health but when I was studying, I was frequently demoralised by how hard I found it to capture my understanding of the material in my written work. I was assured that it would come with practice, and given writing guide books like Strunk’s “Elements of Style” but I didn’t feel like I was making progress. Given it’s only undergrad, the bar for written work is quite low, but I was anxious that my writing skills would hold me back, especially if I chose to go into post-grad research; it never felt like I was getting enough writing practice while actually studying. This really hit me last year’s exams when due to distance learning, instead of producing one uncited essay in 3 hours, I was expected to spend around 5-6 hours in a 48 hour window writing a fully sourced essay. I realised how ill-equipped I was to do focussed reading and note-taking, having previously been able to consume entire topics of content in my own time.

I’m so glad to have stumbled across your blog. I’m not due to resume studying for another year, but the techniques and strategies you describe here provide an effective starting point for practicing the research skills I feel lacking in. Having a clear starting point for skills based work makes me feel actively motivated to start working on it during this year off from formal studying. Thank you for producing this content.

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Optimum number of references for a research paper – and how to achieve that number

There is no universal standard or rule for the number of references that should appear in a research paper. The number of references depends on several factors , chiefly the study discipline and specific topic, the article type and the target journal’s preferences.

Reference number by study discipline and niche

Discipline : The average number of references per article has been observed to be higher for social sciences, physics and ecology than for medical sciences.
Niche : If you are working on a highly researched topic, you might end up having a lot of references. However, within a broad field, a niche or narrow subdiscipline or a very new and original idea, say ‘indigenous languages of the Mascarene Islands’, might have very few pre-existing studies, so you may not have very many studies to cite.

Reference number by article type

Reviews : Review articles , systematic reviews and meta-analyses tend to have long reference lists because, by definition, such studies critically assess the data from existing studies.
Reports : Case reports or other types of short reports cite very few references because the primary focus is the authors’ current findings.
Original : An original article would have a reference number between that of review articles and short reports.

Reference number by journal

Some journals might have restrictions on the maximum number of references, further contingent on article type and total word count. For example, references might be capped at three (e.g. for a ‘Disease Note’ article in the Journal of Plant Pathology ) or could be as high as 100 (e.g. for reviews in PLOS Pathogens ). In Nature , original articles typically have 30–50 references.

Our recommendation : Always consult the journal’s author guidelines for specific limits, if any. Where not specified, skim recently published articles in that journal for a rough estimate.

Tips to help you optimise your reference list

Not every paper you might have read during the literature review needs to be included. To strike the right balance between too many or too few, keep the following key points in mind when compiling your references .

1. Scan academic journals in your field

Study the trends of journals in your discipline, with a focus on the article type you have in mind. Get a rough idea of the number of references typically listed by checking how many references other authors have included in their papers.

2. Strike a balance between retaining and removing

Are some of your statements supported by a long list of references? Try to sift through the noise and retain only those that strongly support the statement and are not repetitive. For example , among several studies that have used the same genetic analysis approach in different species, choose the one most relevant to your study.

‘ Responsible citation ’ requires that you consult and understand the content of a paper before choosing to cite it, rather than including it just because others have cited it. In short…

Retain references if they are truly relevant to your research.
Remove references if you have not read the cited article fully.

There is no standard number of references for an article. However, the following pointers should help you work towards an optimal number.

Keep track of general trends for specific article types by examining the most recent relevant publications.
When a limit is prescribed, treat it as sacrosanct; do not exceed it.
When no limit is indicated, cite an adequate number required for your paper.

With practice, you will learn to strike the perfect balance of not too many and not too few!

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Journal Article Publishing Support Center

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How should I prepare the references in my manuscript?

Check your journal's Guide for Authors to ensure you've met all the specific journal instructions relating to reference requirements, as well as other elements of submission and relevant submission items.

To find the Guide for Authors:

To find the Journal's Homepage, search for the journal using the search box under 'Find by journal title' on the Journal Author’s page .
Click on ‘Guide for Authors’ in the left hand menu.

The Guide for Authors will also tell you if the journal operates Your Paper Your Way , a submission process where there are no strict formatting requirements and references can be in any style or format, as long as the style is consistent. Every journal that offers YPYW clearly indicates this at the beginning of its Guide for Authors.

Reference templates

Most Elsevier journals have their reference template available in many of the most popular reference management software products. Authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article, after which citations and bibliographies will be automatically formatted in the journal's style. Mendeley’s free reference manager services allow you to make your own fully-searchable library in seconds, cite as you write, and read and annotate your PDFs. Mendeley helps organize your papers, citations and references, accessing them in the cloud on any device, wherever you are. The journal’s Guide for Authors will contain a link from where users of Mendeley Desktop can easily install the reference style for the journal and then be able to select this style using the Mendeley plug-ins for Microsoft Word or LibreOffice. If you use reference management software, please ensure that you remove all field codes before submitting the electronic manuscript.

Click the sections below to view examples of the most popular reference styles:

List: references should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.

Reference to a journal publication: Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2010). The art of writing a scientific article. Journal of Scientific Communications , 163, 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372.

Reference to a journal publication with an article number: Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2018). The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon , 19, e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00205.

Reference to a book: Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (2000). The elements of style . (4th ed.). New York: Longman, (Chapter 4).

Reference to a chapter in an edited book: Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (2009). How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281–304). New York: E-Publishing Inc.

Reference to a website: Cancer Research UK. Cancer statistics reports for the UK. (2003). http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/ Accessed 13 March 2003.

Reference to a dataset: [dataset] Oguro, M., Imahiro, S., Saito, S., Nakashizuka, T. (2015). Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions. Mendeley Data, v1. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

Reference to a conference paper or poster presentation: Engle, E.K., Cash, T.F., & Jarry, J.L. (2009, November). The Body Image Behaviours Inventory-3: Development and validation of the Body Image Compulsive Actions and Body Image Avoidance Scales. Poster session presentation at the meeting of the Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies, New York, NY.

Journal abbreviations source

Journal names should be abbreviated according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations .

References cited in the text should conform to the following examples:

Mendoza (1990), Knebel and Mecke (1990) and Mendoza et al. (1990) or (Mendoza, 1990; Knebel and Mecke, 1990; Mendoza et al., 1990; Mecke, 1991).

All references cited in the text should be listed at the end of the paper as follows:

Single authors – list alphabetically and then chronologically.
Author and one co-author – list first alphabetically by co-author, and then chronologically.
First author and more than one co-author – list chronologically (not alpha-betically by the second author) because only the first author’s name and ”et al.” followed by the year publication will be used in the text.
In case that more than one paper by the same author(s) published in the same year is cited, the letters a, b, c, etc., should follow the year – e.g. Bargmann (1970a) – in both the text and the reference list.

References must include: authors (surname followed by initials), year of publication, complete title of article or chapter, name of journal or title of book, editors (if a book), volume number, name of publisher and place of publication (if a book), and first and last page numbers of article or chapter.

Hollin, S.A., Drapkin, A.J., Wancier, J., Huang, Y.P., 1978. Mobile schwannoma of the cauda equina. J. Neurosurg. 48, 135–137.

Fujta, H., Imada, M., 1989. Three dimensional aspects on the functional morphology of the thyroid gland. In: Motta, P.M. (Ed.). Progress in Clinical and Biological Research, vol. 295. Cells and Tissue. A Three dimensional Approach by Modern Techniques in Microscopy. Alan R. Liss, New York, pp. 227–233.

Sternberger, L.A., 1986. Immunocytochemistry, third edition. Wiley, New York.

[dataset] Oguro, M., Imahiro, S., Saito, S., Nakashizuka, T., 2015. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions. Mendeley Data, v1. http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

Articles "in press" may be cited in the reference list, but articles submitted or in preparation should not be included.

Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given. Example: '..... as demonstrated [3,6]. Barnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different result ....'

List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Reference to a journal publication:

[1] J. van der Geer, J.A.J. Hanraads, R.A. Lupton, The art of writing a scientific article, J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2010) 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372.

Reference to a journal publication with an article number:

[2] Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2018. The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon. 19, e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00205.

Reference to a book:

[3] W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, fourth ed., Longman, New York, 2000.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

[4] G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 2009, pp. 281–304.

Reference to a website:

[5] Cancer Research UK, Cancer statistics reports for the UK. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/, 2003 (accessed 13 March 2003).

Reference to a dataset:

[dataset] [6] M. Oguro, S. Imahiro, S. Saito, T. Nakashizuka, Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions, Mendeley Data, v1, 2015. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

References should be cited in the text by numbers in brackets, in order of appearance and follow the the Vancouver Style . Only articles that have been published or are in press should be included in the references. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references. Unpublished results or personal communications should be cited as such in the text. Please note the following examples:

[1] Hermann BP, Seidenberg M, Bell B, Woodard A, Rutecki P, Sheth R. Comorbid psychiatric symptoms in temporal lobe epilepsy: association with chronicity of epilepsy and impact on quality of life. Epilepsy Behav 2000;1:184-90.

[2] Paxinos G, Ashwell KWS, Tork I. Atlas of the developing rat nervous system. 2nd ed. San Diego: Academic Press; 1994.

[3] Shafer PO, Salmanson E. Psychosocial aspects of epilepsy. In: Schachter SC, Schomer DL, editors. The comprehensive evaluation and treatment of epilepsy: a practical guide. San Diego: Academic Press; 1997. p. 91-109.

Reference style

Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.

[1] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2010;163:51–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372.

[2] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon. 2018;19:e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00205

[3] Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 4th ed. New York: Longman; 2000.

[4] Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age, New York: E-Publishing Inc; 2009, p. 281–304.

[5] Cancer Research UK. Cancer statistics reports for the UK, http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/; 2003 [accessed 13 March 2003].

[dataset] [6] Oguro M, Imahiro S, Saito S, Nakashizuka T. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions, Mendeley Data, v1; 2015. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51–9, and that for more than 6 authors the first 6 should be listed followed by 'et al.' For further details you are referred to 'Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals' (J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927–34) (see also Samples of Formatted References .

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How to Determine the Ideal Number of References for a 10,000-Word Dissertation?

by Anna Catrall | Nov 27, 2023 | Digital Health Literacy

You may be familiar with situations when your friends shout at you because you used their stories to get their attention without mentioning them. Acknowledgement in all mediums has always been necessary, especially when writing academic papers. Yet, most students are not well acquainted with referencing styles. Studies have shown that there has been an error rate of 25-54% in the accuracy of references in many scientific disciplines.

As dissertations are important for all students, it is crucial to learn how to handle them correctly. Despite a moderate error rate, you need to ensure that your paper is perfect and can fetch perfect grades. You can always ask for a dissertation help london from websites like myassignnenthelp.co.uk and learn how to write such papers.

But before you Visit one such website , you must also know the basics. The following few sections will answer the main question, help you learn the factors, and share tips to choose the right references.

Let’s get started!

The Ideal Number of References in a 10,000-word Dissertation

The number of references in a dissertation depends on a lot of things. However, in a 10,000-word dissertation, the ideal number of references is expected to be around 45-50. You have to keep this in mind while writing such dissertations.

As dissertations are one of the most important papers for students, it is necessary to understand all the aspects before you work on them. References play a major role in the entire paper, and you have to understand the referencing style before you start working on the papers.

Students often go on using the maximum number of references without considering any of the factors. The need to understand the various things before you start working on your dissertation is crucial.

The following section will take you through the factors determining the number of references in a dissertation. Understand the same and plan the dissertation accordingly.

Factors Determining the Number of References

The number of references in a dissertation depends on a few factors. A proper understanding of these factors will help you define the number of references you use in a dissertation. Here’s a look at the factors:

Research methodology

The way you research plays a crucial role in defining the number of references. Students are assigned various assignments and must choose an appropriate research methodology to find necessary information and justify the assignment. For instance, if you use a qualitative research methodology, you will focus on small samples and will not need many references. You have to understand the same before you work on the projects.

A lot depends on the subject you are pursuing. A science dissertation will have more references than one in the humanities. Science demands a lot of research and evidence to prove a point. You will have to do a series of experiments to justify a science project, which is why the number of references is high in such papers.

The scope of a dissertation plays a crucial role in determining the number of references. If the dissertation covers a broad range of topics, it will have more references. You need to understand the scope to determine the number of references necessary in your dissertation.

Dissertation requirements

You have to look into the requirements before you decide on the number of references. The dissertation requirements are important in the entire process. You cannot follow the ideal number of references and ignore the dissertation requirements. The university will share the necessary instructions; students are expected to follow the same for better results.

Now, that’s not all. You also need to know the tips to choose the right references and justify your project. The following section will take you through the tips to choose the right references.

Tips to Choose the Right References

You need to know how to select the right references to sail through the referencing process. Take a look at some of the expert tips to choose the right references:

Choose credible sources

Your research will hold no value if you don’t choose credible sources. You need to find credible sources that readers will acknowledge. It is crucial to understand the right ways to find credible sources and understand the meaning of the same to overcome the odds. Consult with your professor or an expert to understand the same and justify the paper.

Use current sources

Citing sources that are old will not serve the purpose. You need to check the date of publishing before you use information from any source. There are instances where students fail to score well in the papers because they don’t use information from current sources. You have to acknowledge the importance of current data and find information accordingly.

Understand your audience

It is crucial to understand your audience when you select your references. If you are writing for people who are more into education, you need to find scholarly articles on the topic. The audience must relate to what you are saying. So, you have to find data that is relevant to the audience. It will help you justify the papers and help you score well in them. You must know what is best for your paper and choose your sources accordingly.

There are a lot of things to understand while write my dissertation . You have to ensure that you have the best solution to score well in the papers. The need to find the right information is crucial in dissertations, and you have to be good with the research process. Referencing is a part of the process, and you have to start from the basics to ensure the paper is flawless.

To end with,

It is important to understand the importance of references in dissertations. However, you will be unable to justify the paper if you are not well-versed with the steps or the ways to choose referencing. You need to know the best ways to refer to your sources and understand the referencing style to justify your work. The points mentioned above answer all the questions you might have. Consult with your professor and learn how to use proper referencing for better results.

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How much of the Masters purse did winner Scottie Scheffler get?

By Megan Cerullo

Edited By Anne Marie Lee

Updated on: April 15, 2024 / 8:49 AM EDT / CBS News

A low score at the Masters at Augusta means a high payout for professional golfers.

The total purse for the 2024 Masters is $20 million, a record high, and up $2 million from last year. Tournament champion Scottie Scheffler took home a record $3.6 million — $360,000 more than last year's winner earned. Scheffler, who is American, also won the tournament in 2022, when he netted $2.7 million of a $15 million purse.

In 2023, tournament winner John Rahm took home a $3.24 million payout in prize money, a nice chunk of that year's tournament's total $18 million purse.

The remainder of the purse was split among 50 golfers, with the tournament's two runners-up taking home $1.6 million each in prize money. Only three golfers earned seven figures, based on how they placed.

The purse for the 2024 competition at Augusta was announced Saturday. Following tradition, it is announced during, as opposed to in advance of the tournament.

The 2024 Masters purse payout breakdown is as follows, with the top 50 golfers receiving cash prizes ranging from $3.6 million to $50,400. The remaining professionals, who do not place in the top 50, receive cash prices ranging downward from $49,200, based on their scores. Notably, amateurs do not earn money to compete. The first year the masters was played, in 1934, the purse was $5,000 and the winner took home $1,500.

Purse: $20 million
Winner: $3.6 million
Second Place: $2.16 million
Third Place: $1.36 million
Fourth Place: $960,000
Fifth Place: $800,000
Sixth Place: $720,000
Seventh Place: $670,000
Eighth Place: $620,000
Ninth Place: $580,000
Tenth Place: $540,000

Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News Streaming to discuss her reporting.

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How to write References, Citations & Bibliography in Thesis/Dissertation
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publications
It could be only one. Conceivably, it could be none. For a master's thesis in literature, the minimum might be one secondary source for each thousand word. In imagine, in that case, that it might be double than many for a doctoral disseration. In that case, the number secondary sources for doctoral thesis would have to be around 150.
The Minimum Number of References in a Dissertation
Your dissertation reference list reflects your level of research done in preparation for your writing. While there is no set number of references to supply, there are some helpful guidelines you can follow to ensure you supply an adequately deep and developed list of sources. These tips, from including a broad range ...
How Many References in a Research Paper?
According to Milojević's study encompassing research in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, robotics, ecology, and economics, the highest and average number of references per article page were as follows: Ecology: highest, ~58; average reference per page, 6; Math and robotics: highest, ~28; average reference per page, <1; and.
PDF Guidelines for The PhD Dissertation
Most dissertations are 100 to 300 pages in length. All dissertations should be divided into appropriate sections, and long dissertations may need chapters, main divisions, and even subdivisions. Students should keep in mind that GSAS and many departments deplore overlong and wordy dissertations.
PDF APA Style Dissertation Guidelines: Formatting Your Dissertation
Dissertation Content When the content of the dissertation starts, the page numbering should restart at page one using Arabic numbering (i.e., 1, 2, 3, etc.) and continue throughout the dissertation until the end. The Arabic page number should be aligned to the upper right margin of the page with a running head aligned to the upper left margin.
PDF DISSERTATION Chapters 1-5 Section Rubric
Dissertation Chapter 1 - 5 Sections Rubric - Version 1 May 1, 2019 APA formatting errors. Verb tense is an important consideration for Chapters 1 through 3. For the proposal, the researcher uses future tense (e.g. "The purpose of this study is to…"), whereas in the dissertation, the chapters are revised to reflect past tense (e.g. "The
Required Sections, Guidelines, and Suggestions : Graduate School
Line 1: A Dissertation [or Thesis] Line 2: Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School. Line 3: of Cornell University. Line 4: in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of. Line 5: Doctor of Philosophy [or other appropriate degree] Center the following three lines within the margins: Line 1: by.
How many references should I have?
Use as many references as you need. You'll need an appropriate amount for your academic level - this will vary. Reference everything you cite. If you use an idea, cite and reference it. Ask your tutor. They may have guidance for you on how much reading they expect you to do. Students sometimes worry that there is an optimum number of ...
PDF Research Dissertation Guidelines
Word limit. Your research dissertation should be around 10,000 words. There is an absolute maximum of 12,000 words. This includes everything apart from figure legends, tables, appendices and references. The marker will stop reading after 12,000 words, and anything after that will not be marked (except for your reference list).
How to Best Use References in a Dissertation
Include Recent Researches. As important as relevant studies are for your dissertation, including recent studies only is equally important. Using reference in a dissertation that belong to the past five to ten years are acceptable; however, using references of the 1980s or 1990s is not recommended. The main reason being changes in time, settings ...
How to Cite a Dissertation in APA Style
APA format: Author last name, Initials.(Year).Dissertation title (Publication No. Number) [Type of dissertation/thesis, University Name]. Database Name.: APA reference entry: Ford, L. (2015). The use of experiential acceptance in psychotherapy with emerging adults (Publication No. 3731118) [Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.
How Many References for A Dissertation Are Necessary?
A minimum of 150 references in a dissertation will be required for the PhD level, with a maximum of 200 references. It is the best benchmark. 2. ... The correct number of references in a dissertation depends on various factors like the degree level, the demand of the colleges, and the topic. ...
How Many References Should a Research Paper Have? Study of 96,685
1- The average number of references for a research paper is 45, with 90% of research papers having between 8 and 102 references. However, this number depends a lot on study design. For instance, a systematic review typically has 49 references while a case report has only 24. 2- As a rule of thumb, consider citing 1 reference for every 95 words ...
How Do I Reference?
To reference a book, you will need to know the author (s) name (s), the year when the book was published, the title of the book, as well as the place the book was published, and the name of publisher, for example: Reeves, S. & Jeanes, Y. (2022) The Study Skills Handbook for Nutritionists and Dietitians.
How many references is enough?
If you can reference a huge number of references for a single statement (sentence) it is normal to pick one or possibly a few by using a format indicating these references are just examples, "e.g., Smith et al., 1943; Turner and Anthony, 1963)", "[some statement] by, for example, Smith et al. (1943) and Turner and Anthony (1963)."
How many sources are enough? Six questions on breadth and depth of
Writing a Thesis (Undergraduate or Masters) or a Dissertation (PhD) ... This is an absurd question that is prompted by arbitrarily setting a random number of sources as "enough". If you read the right five sources, you've probably covered a full field. ... you should generate at the very minimum a row entry in your Excel conceptual ...
Q: What is the standard number of references a paper should have?
Answer: Regarding the number of reference citations, there is no specific number or range that is considered as normal or standard. You should cite just about enough sources that are required for your paper. The number of references you will use depends on how much literature exists on the topic. If you are working on a very new and original ...
Published Dissertation or Thesis References
A dissertation or thesis is considered published when it is available from a database such as ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global or PDQT Open, an institutional repository, or an archive. If the database assigns publication numbers to dissertations and theses, include the publication number in parentheses after the title of the ...
What is the optimum number of references for a research paper?
For example, references might be capped at three (e.g. for a 'Disease Note' article in the Journal of Plant Pathology) or could be as high as 100 (e.g. for reviews in PLOS Pathogens). In Nature, original articles typically have 30-50 references. Our recommendation: Always consult the journal's author guidelines for specific limits, if any.
citations
Numerically, I expect to have each single reference to be equated with two pages of the candidate's work as a maximum. This would mean that a dissertation of 300 pages should not have used more than150 references. The number wil' vary according g to the length of the dissertation.
How should I prepare the references in my manuscript?
Reference style. Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given. List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text. Examples: Reference to a journal publication:
How to Determine the Ideal Number of References for a 10,000
However, in a 10,000-word dissertation, the ideal number of references is expected to be around 45-50. You have to keep this in mind while writing such dissertations. As dissertations are one of the most important papers for students, it is necessary to understand all the aspects before you work on them. References play a major role in the ...
What is the optimum number of references to be quoted in a research
In my case, number of page was lowest 2 (short comm) and highest 54 (rev) and number of reference was 7 (sc)and 148 (rev). All other articles were in between. Thanks.
How much of the Masters purse did winner Scottie Scheffler get?
A low score at the Masters at Augusta means a high payout for professional golfers. The total purse for the 2024 Masters is $20 million, a record high, and up $2 million from last year. Tournament ...