Summary
One of the most common problems in scientific journals, it is the failure of the styles to make citations and references due to carelessness or ignorance of the different systems and their characteristics. The aim was to review the different styles of citations and references used by dental journals indexed in SciELO, to describe the most used and highlight the differences between journals. One hundred articles randomly selected by proportional allocation, belonging to 20 different journals were reviewed. The most commonly used format for citations and references corresponded to the Vancouver system. Only a journal, International Journal of Odontostomatology publishes his articles under the Harvard system. These styles serve as a hallmark for journals, but they are a significant additional workload as the attention to detail required to ensure that citations and references fit individual styles of the journals is fundamental. Whatever the style of the journals, it is important to use it in a consistent manner. The responsibility for the accuracy in citations and references belongs to the authors, so they should worry about it in drafting version, its final revision, as well as proofs of the article.
KEY WORDS: references, styles of references, citations, Vancouver, Harvard, scientific writing.
How to cite this article
CANTÍN, M. & CHUHUAICURA, P. Styles for citations and referencing in dental SciELO journals: A critical element of scientific writing. Int. J. Odontostomat., 10(2):349-357, 2016.
