the accuracy of citations in medical phd theses and their correspondence with vancouver style, tabriz university of medical sciences, tabriz, iran

background: citations are fundamental basis of all scientific papers including theses. inaccurate and improper citations would lead to high expenses for the researchers and libraries to access these citations. this research tried to review the accuracy of references in persian defended medical specialized theses in 2007 in tabriz university of medical sciences, tabriz, iran. it also aimed to determine the correspondence rate of selected citations with vancouver style. methods: citation analysis was used as the study approach. systematic sampling and morgan table were employed to select 347 articles from 1390 cited articles. the six studied factors included author(s), title of the article, title of the journal, year of publication, volume [and issue], and number of pages. citation errors were divided into two main groups of minor and major errors. data was collected by direct observations. data was then entered into a checklist based on taylor division. spss 11 was used for data analysis. results: out of all 347 reviewed cited articles, 98.3% citation errors were observed. only 164 (46.27%) articles were completely error-free. none of citations corresponded with vancouver style. conclusion: the main reasons for dissatisfying results of citation errors and rate of correspondence with vancouver style were students' unawareness of the importance of citations in scientific papers and the need for consistency, not paying attention to experts and specialized librarians' advice, the unfamiliarity of students with reference management software, and the inconsistency of universities writing guidelines with standard styles. to improve citations in theses, some solutions are suggested. for instance, a part of thesis grade needs to be allocated to accuracy of references. holding reference management software workshops might also be beneficial.