引用文献的目的有支持、反驳、对比、突出作者的成果或思想等，无论何种研究目的，引用他人的研究时务必要专业和谦恭，尤其不要侮辱前人的研究。不礼貌的引用可能会令编辑或审稿人不愉快，从而导致文章被拒。例如：

(1) Unbelievably, Brownfailed to consider… 应修改为：Different theories on this topic exist (27-29).

(2) The study by Aday iswithout merit. 应修改为：Our study differs from that of Aday (35) inthat…

(3) Clearly, Chumsky’stheory is wrong. 应修改为：X has been the topic of much controversy(4,5,8).

      有关参考文献引用中的妥当用词：

      (1) 表示支持相关研究成果：

l Our results are consistent with thosereported previously (5,8,10-14).

l Similar results have also been observed byAlton et al. (11).

l Mayer and Bims also determined … Here weconfirm Lohn’s theory of ….

      (2) 反驳他人的研究成果:

l Different findings have been reported previously(33).

l Our findings show that the previously proposedtheory A(17) is not supported by …

l Not all studies agree on this finding. Forexample, Peters et al. determined…(5).

(3) 比较自己与他人的研究成果：

l Our findings are comparable to those ofVignanery’s (9).

l When compared to recent findings describedby (8), our study shows …  

l Although Dauh et al. reported recently XXX (6),our study also takes into consideration…

(4) 突出作者本人的研究成果：

l Unlike other previous findings (23-25), ourwork presents…

l Our study expands on work of Hui’s (33), whichreported Y, and highlights the importance of …

l Our study sets itself apart from otherstudies (33-35) in that…

摘编自《科技写作与交流》(任胜利等 译. 科学出版社, 2012年出版)