Characteristics of References in Selected Scholarly English Literary Journals

This study analyzes 9,556 footnotes in 15 different journals devoted to English literary scholarship. Only articles dealing with the Anglo-Saxon through Victorian periods are used. It appears that literary researchers depend more heavily on books (75 percent of all citations) than do scholars in other disciplines. The most often cited journals in the field are identified by name. About 70 percent of all material cited is over ten years old. Frequency of citation of foreign language scholarship in this field is about the same as occurs in other fields. Comments on the methodology of citation studies in English literature are included.