do references count towards page limit of journal paper I am writing a paper and the journal recommends it be 8 pages and 6000 words. I have almost 1 page of references making it difficult to cut the paper down further. Therefore do the references contribute to the page count ?
It depends entirely on the journal, as well as the purpose of the length restrictions.  Some journals do not count the references toward the length total.  However, many others do count the references, especially when the printed version of the journal is still deemed important, since in that case the issue may be related to the physical length of the issue.