About References

Take note!

Challenges and Issues of Modern Science is the only official title of our journal. 
When citing the journal Challenges and Issues of Modern Science, it is crucial to use the official title of the journal without any alterations, translations, or distortions. Any modifications to the journal's name can lead to citations not being accurately attributed in the authors' scientific profiles, which can adversely affect the journal's visibility and impact. We strictly prohibit any variations or misrepresentations of the journal's name to ensure proper citation and to maintain the integrity and recognition of our publication.

Requirements for citations and references in scientific work

Failure to link to the source of information is a copyright violation, and an improperly formatted link is considered a serious error.

 

Scientific citation is a reliable indication of the source of information, it is a mandatory element of any scientific work. The use of bibliographic references in scientific works is used in the following cases.

  • Citation of text fragments, formulas, tables, illustrations.
  • Borrowing provisions, formulas, tables, illustrations.
  • Paraphrasing, non-verbatim reproduction of a fragment of someone else's text.
  • Analysis in the text of the content of other publications.
  • The reader is referred to other publications where the material to be discussed is more fully presented.
  • Research rationale and context – references to previous research that justify the relevance and importance of your research.
  • Methodology – a description of the methods that were used in the study, with references to the sources where these methods were described in detail or first proposed.
  • Discussion of results – refer to papers whose results support or contradict your conclusions to demonstrate the scientific validity of your research.
  • Theoretical foundations – References to the main theories and models used in your research.
  • Compliance with Standards – refer to the standards, protocols, or regulatory documents that you followed in your research.
  • Supplementary literature – links to additional sources that may be useful for a deeper understanding of the research context or methodology.

This list covers almost all the major cases in which bibliography should be cited in a research paper, thus ensuring the academic integrity of your research paper. This detailed citation will help ensure full transparency and reproducibility of your research, and will demonstrate your knowledge of the topic and respect for the work of other researchers.

The correct use of citations and design of links in scientific works is an important component of compliance with the principles of academic integrity and contributes to the high-quality integration of researchers into the world system of open scientific communication.

Each source provided must be cited in the main text of the article. If your article continues the research topic and contains new results, do not forget to cite your own previous articles on the topic, but no more than 30% of the total number of references.

You can refer to:

  • peer-reviewed scientific articles published in scientific journals;
  • monographs and scientific books written by experts in the relevant field;
  • scientific research reports published by scientific institutions or government agencies;
  • articles or conference abstracts, if they are also peer-reviewed,
  • theses.

Provided that the above-mentioned sources are publicly available on the Internet.

It is forbidden to refer to

  • non-scientific sources, namely study guides, textbooks, encyclopedias, popular magazines and newspapers, blogs and personal websites, Wikipedia (or other general online encyclopedias), etc.,
  • sources that are not available on the Internet, each source without exception must contain an Internet link to the DOI , URI or URL,
  • materials and abstracts of conferences, if they are not published in a peer-reviewed proceedings,
  • self-published and other non-peer-reviewed publications,
  • advertising materials and press releases,
  • forum discussions and user comments on websites, social networks (for example, posts on Twitter , Facebook ).

⚠️ It is not recommended to refer to sources that are more than five years old. An exception may be classical or fundamental research, if it is the basis of current scientific developments.

We prohibit citing literary sources from publishers and periodicals affiliated with Russia or Belarus, published from 1992 onwards, inclusive. Additionally, citing literary sources authored by citizens of these countries is prohibited, regardless of the publication date. An exception may be made for scientific publications or articles from other countries that have been translated and published by publishers in these countries. However, authors are strongly advised to cite the original sources to avoid complications at any stage of the publishing workflow.

Requirements for creating references

The order of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine recommends drawing up a list of scientific publications according to the following international standards: MLA style (Modern Language Association), APA style (American Psychological Association), Chicago / Turabianstyle , Harvard style , ACS style (American Chemical Society), AIP style (American Institute of Physics), IEEE style (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), Vancouver style , OSCOLA , APS (American Physics Society) style , Springer MathPhys Style , which is a very valid technical solution because it corresponds to the technological features of CrossRef, DataCite and other index systems.

Why we chose APA style?

Each link, as a data structure, must be understood by a search robot of a scientific database (web crawler , web spider), which indexes the log content. That is, in the reference, it should identify the authors, the year of publication, the name of the source, the number of the source, and even the pages. It is questionable whether all search engines correctly interpret links that are designed according to DSTU or GOST. The correctness of the interpretation of references according to popular international standards, of course, if they do not contain errors, is beyond doubt. An incorrectly interpreted reference is not "returned" to the authors in the form of a citation of their work.

According to statistical data and according to some subjective assessments, the most popular standard in the scientific community for the design of bibliographic references in academic journals is the APA standard style.

  • According to a 2020 Elsevier study by the APA style is the most common citation style in scientific journals published on the Elsevier platform .
  • 2018 study by Taylor & Francis found that the APA style is used in 35% of scientific journals published on their platform.
  • According to Springer , APA style is the second most common citation style after Chicago Manual of Style , which is used by 38% of scientific journals published on their platform.
  • A 2021 survey of academics found that 65% of respondents believed that APA style is the best citation style for academic journals.
  • Many academic writing experts recommend using APA style

That's why we chose APA style and require authors to adhere to it when preparing the list of references in manuscripts. At the time of writing this manual, the 7th edition of this standard (APA Style, Seventh Edition).