Analysis of citations in undergraduate papers

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a citation analysis of papers written by undergraduate students. The analysis included the types of materials cited, number of citations per paper, publication year, online availability, and refereed status of materials cited. Library ownership of materials was also analyzed. Number of citations in each paper increased over the first three papers, as did the number of refereed journals cited. There was also a positive correlation between the number of citations in the paper and the word count of the paper.