Aim: The aim of this research is to study the degree the international citation method is observed in references sources of scientific journals’ articles in the field of humanities in the year 2009.
Method: The research population was all the articles published in the scientific journals in Humanities in 2009, of which a sample of 96 journals was selected randomly containing 354 articles. The required data was collected by means of a checklist devised for the purpose of this study. Both, descriptive and analytical Statistical methods were used to analyze the collected data.
Findings: Results of the study revealed that 45.2% of the examined articles were written by one author and the majority of the articles used the APA style of citation. 17.5 percent used the MLA style, 4.5 percent used the Vancouver style, and 4% used the Chicago style. Kruskal Wallis non parametric test was used to test the research hypothesis. The results indicated there were significant differences in observation of the international citation methods.
Conclusion: The APA citation method is mostly observed in Humanities journal articles, while, the Vancouver style is the most applied method among the rest of styles. In addition, the publishers of private sector much better observed the citation method indexes than government publishers. The journals of subjective Jurisprudence and Principles, Economics, and Library and Information Science possess the maximum observation rate compared with other fields; while, the journals in Physical Education have the minimum rate.