A research group led by graduate student Fumi Ohno, former graduate student Riho Adachi, professor Kentaro Murakami, and professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo Satoshi Sasaki of the Graduate School of Medicine, the University of Tokyo, investigated the state of citations in general books on food and health in Japan and the United States. When we investigated, we found that approximately 3% of Japanese and American publications did not clearly indicate cited references, and that the quality and manner of citing references in Japanese general books was poorer than in the US.
According to the University of Tokyo, the research group selected 100 books each in Japan and the United States from the sales rankings in the food and nutrition category on online bookstores such as Amazon, and checked every page to determine the presence and number of cited references.
As a result, 66 general books in Japan and 65 in the United States clearly indicated cited references, and about one-third in both Japan and the United States did not.In the United States, 3 academic papers were cited, all of which cited research involving human subjects, while in Japan, 1 academic papers were cited and only 58 cited research involving human subjects. ing.
Additionally, 49 books in the United States cite systematic reviews* for research involving humans, compared to 9 in Japan. There were 100 general books in the US that cited over 37 documents, but only 5 in Japan.
Among general books that cite literature, 97% in the United States had book information for all cited literature, but only 64% in Japan.The research group believes that compared to the United States, Japanese general literature is not able to present sufficient quality and number of cited references in an easily identifiable form, and says that efforts need to be made to raise awareness of the importance of cited references.
*A research method that uses a systematic and explicit method to identify, select, and evaluate existing research dealing with a clearly formulated question, and then presents the current answer to the question.
Paper information:【Public Health Nutrition】Are popular books about diet and health written based on scientific evidence?: A comparison of citations between the US and Japan
