A study of citation accuracy in psychology theses submitted to the University of Mysore

This paper is an attempt to examine the accuracy of references in five psychology theses submitted to the University of Mysore. Nine hundred and twenty three references were verified for their accuracy. Seventy seven percent of the references had citation errors. The errors were classified as major and minor errors. The major errors included incorrect journal names, articles titles, author and citations such as wrong volumes, issues, years and page numbers. Minor errors included: punctuations, incomplete article titles, and incomplete author names. The study found that 39.54 percent of the references contained major errors. Misspelling author(s) name (21.77%), misspelling of titles (37.93%), mistakes in volume (5.76%) and issue numbers (1.15%), mistakes in year (37.66%) and page numbers (62.33%) were kinds of major errors found in the study. Lack of awareness about referencing techniques and lack of diligence in compilation of bibliography are the reasons for such errors. This study suggest for imparting training for young researcher to follow appropriate reference styles and maintain the accuracy of the references