By choosing 50 research papers published in five medical academic journals with high impact factors, their references are analyzed, the authors, titles, journals, year, volume (issue) and pages of 834 English and Chinese references which can be checked online from the journals from PubMed and some other databases are examined. The total citation error rate was 24.8% (207/834), there are some differences between the five journals (20.0%~31.1%,χ2=1.8328, P>0.75), and the citation error rate of Chinese reference was higher than that of English references (31.6% vs 23.2%,χ2=4.8667, P<0.05). The coincidence rate of the bibliographical references in PudMed with the fulltext of original references of PDF was as high as 98.7%. The error rate from the English journals was mainly authors (27.2%), then page number (22.3%) and then titles (19.3%), and the major error rate in English references was 34.2 % with the range from 20.5% to 46.5% among the five journals. The error rate from Chinese journals was chiefly authors (27.6%), then page number (25.9%) and then volume (issue) (20.9%). There is certain relation between executive editors and accurate rate of the references. This paper carefully analyzes all kinds of errors, discusses their causes and countermeasures, points out that we should pay equal attention to the checking of Chinese and English references and indicates that the authors should accurately cite the references, and that the editors should precisely check the references so that both the author and the editor make efforts to further promote the accurate rate of the references.