Abstract
To test the hypothesis that the selection of literature in review articles is unsystematic and is influenced by the authors' discipline and country of residence. Reviews in English published between 1980 and March 1996 in MEDLINE, EMBASE (BIDS), PSYCHLIT, and Current Contents were searched. Reviews of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) were selected. Articles explicitly concerned with a specialty aspect of CFS and unattributed, unreferenced, or insufficiently referenced articles were discarded. Record of data sources in each review was noted as was the departmental specialty of the first author and his or her country of residence. The references cited in each index paper were tabulated by assigning them to 6 specialty categories, by article title, and by assigning them to 8 categories, by country of journal publication. Of 89 reviews, 3 (3.4%) reported on literature search and described search method. Authors from laboratory-based disciplines preferentially cited laboratory references, while psychiatry-based disciplines preferentially cited psychiatric literature (P = .01). A total of 71.6% of references cited by US authors were from US journals, while 54.9% of references cited by United Kingdom authors were published in United Kingdom journals (P = .001). Citation of the literature is influenced by review authors' discipline and nationality.
Highlights
Paper presented at: Third International Congress on Peer Review in Biomedical Publication; September 19, 1997; Prague, Czech Republic
Articles explicitly labeled as dealing with a specialty aspect of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), such as
Since the subject or country of publication categories may be regarded as repeated measurements within each review and the data are approximately normally distributed, this could be done by repeatedmeasures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using the matrix of percentages
Summary
Paper presented at: Third International Congress on Peer Review in Biomedical Publication; September 19, 1997; Prague, Czech Republic. The structure of scientific fields and the allocation of editorships on scientific journals: some observations on the politics of knowledge. In: Zuckerman H, Cole JR, Bruer JT, eds. The Outer Circle: Women in the Scientific Community. Professional communication networks: a case study of women in the American Public Health Association. The exercise of power and influence: the source of influence.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
