PURPOSE
This is for analyzing the recent citations from papers enrolled in the Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing and understanding correct marking of references. METHOD: Targeted 2,334 references in 93 articles introduced from Feb. 2002 to Dec. 2002 which are applied current contribution rules of the Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing. RESULT: 1. 25 references are quoted per article and particularly foreign journals are most frequently quoted. Among foreign journals, Nursing Research is most frequently used. The Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing is also mostly referred material among national journals. 2. The retrieval rate is prove to be 1,539(83.8%) and 267(11.7%) are without errors and the other 2,022 have at least more than one error regardless of frequency. 3. Major error rate of periodical publication is 484(36.8%) and most occurred in the inconsistency of titles between articles and references. 4. Foreign journals have much more errors than national ones concerning periodical publications. CONCLUSION: Correct citation and marking of references can be achieved through strict reviewing process by authors, editors, publishers and paper investigators. In consequence, it is expected that these processes can cause improvement of quality in impact factor and papers.