Working with literature sources during the process of writing an article is an important stage that requires special attention. A preliminary analysis of literary sources helps to determine the specifics of the study of the problematic set and the existing gaps. This approach contributes to the formation of the novelty of future work by studying the specifics of previously published works. With the help of a preliminary analysis of the list of literature, it will be possible to identify differences between existing studies, synthesize new approaches of research, and provide a logical study of the problem. Also, the study of literature sources contributed to the identification of aspects of practical application of the topic and the study of different approaches to the development of the topic.
During the writing of scientific works for Scopus, WoS it is necessary to focus on the sources of literature that were published in the last 3–5 years (80%). Furthermore, the article should include foreign sources that are indexed in the journals included in the Scopus and WoS databases. The choice of sources should correspond most precisely to the topic of the work and exclude the use of articles from journals that do not correspond to the profile. For example, an article on ecosystems may be published in a journal on culture, which may confirm an unfair review. Incorrectly selected sources of literature can affect the quality of new research.
During the selection of literature sources, it is necessary to exclude falsification of data (for example, specifying the wrong year—instead of 2005, specify 2023); use of errors in surnames, which will lead to the absence of inaccuracies in citations. Use of inappropriate literature sources, which may be directed at increasing the citation ranking of colleagues. Self-citation should be excluded from the works (an acceptable percentage of 8%), which may affect the originality of the submitted material. Self-citation should be based on the relevance of the presented material to the research topic as a result of the necessary supplementation of existing data.
In addition to the exact correspondence of the selected sources of literature for a research work, the accuracy of their design is also important. One of the most popular styles of literature design is APA 6th (American Psychological Association). APA style is characterized by the universality of the design of literary sources, which provides for the indication of the authors’ data, the year of publication, the title of the article, the name of the journal, volume (issue) numbers, and page numbers. An example of formatting a journal article in accordance with APA 6th style would be as follows:
Elahi, M., Khosh Kholgh, D., Kiarostami, M. S., Oussalah, M., & Saghari, S. (2023). Hybrid recommendation by incorporating the sentiment of product reviews. Information Sciences, 625, 738-756. doi:10.1016/j.ins.2023.01.051
In the text, the literature source will be cited as follows: (Elahi et al., 2023).
An example of referencing in Scopus and WoS articles is the Harvard Referencing Style, a British standard. Harvard Referencing Style is a classic style of literature design that is associated with the possibility of citing the source, either in the text itself or at the end of the work. He is most common in the human and social sciences, which is associated with the need to justify the theoretical material through reinforcement of relevant sources of literature. An example of the design of a scientific article in accordance with the Harvard – British standard:
ELAHI, M., KHOSH KHOLGH, D., KIAROSTAMI, M.S., OUSSALAH, M. and SAGHARI, S., 2023. Hybrid recommendation by incorporating the sentiment of product reviews. Information Sciences, 625, pp. 738-756.
Vancouver (Vancouver) also favours the citation of literature sources in scientific articles, which is most commonly used in medicine and the physical sciences. In the text, the citation of literature sources should be presented in the form of an ordinal index, which can be represented by a simple number or a number in square (round) brackets. The citation of an article in a journal will have the following appearance:
Elahi M, Khosh Kholgh D, Kiarostami MS, Oussalah M, Saghari S. Hybrid recommendation by incorporating the sentiment of product reviews. Inf Sci 2023;625:738-756.
There are other styles of design of literature sources (Chicago, NLM (National Library of Medicine), MLA, etc.) that affect the perception of information. The importance of the selected literature sources is reflected in the possibility of providing unique research, the results of which have not been published elsewhere.