Why cite?
While writing research articles, reports, or any other academic paper, it is obligatory to disclose the sources you have used for your analysis, your narratives, and your conclusions. It acquaints the readers with the foundation of literature on which your study is based and help them to judge the reliability and integrity of your research. Moreover, it is essential to credit people for their views and ideas that contributed to the synthesis of the framework of your study. Failing to cite all the used sources or incorrect citations constitutes plagiarism, which is appraised as a serious academic offense.
Basics of Citations
Your citations must never mislead the reader and must direct them to the right sources whether those are books, interviews, archival documents, websites, poems, or painting. Each citation style has different rules about how in-text and end-of paper citations for various source types (books, articles, web pages, videos) and situations (online, print, no author, multiple authors) must be constructed (what is included, and in what order) and formatted (punctuation, italics, capitalization). The availability of so many citation styles often baffles the writer regarding the adoption of a particular style. The one you use depends on your field of research, your professor’s advice, and your own preferences.
Different citation styles
There are 3 major reference styles that are used worldwide such as:
1. APA (Education, Psychology, and Sciences)
2. MLA (used in Humanities)
3. Chicago (or Turabian) (Business, History and Fine arts)
Several sciences have developed their own distinctive reference styles. Like CSE for biological sciences, AMA for biomedical sciences, ACS for chemistry, AIP for physics, AMS for mathematics and computer sciences, IEEE & ASCE for engineering.
Despite the differences, all the citation styles have the same objective to fulfill: To identify and credit all the sources used and give readers specific information so that they can access these sources themselves. And so different citation styles include a lot of the same information that you can write initially without worrying about the citation style that you will ultimately use. And afterward you may arrange them according to the desired citation style.
APA style
v Journal articles
Step-1:- Start with the author’s last name and initial
Write the author’s last name and the first letter of initial name (.), followed by second author’s name and so on. When there are two to twenty authors, use an ampersand (&) before the final author’s name. Provide family names and initials for up to and including 20 authors.
When there are 21 or more authors, include the first 19 authors’ names, insert an ellipsis (…) and then add the final author’s name. Place a full stop after the names of all authors have been written.
For example if the author’s names are Yinghui Wu, Wei Chen and Liyu Liu,
Wu, Y., Chen, W., Chen, G., Liu, L., He, Z., & Liu, R.
Step-2:- Year of publication
Provide the year paper was published within parentheses after the author’s names and put a full stop after it.
Wu, Y., Chen, W., Chen, G., Liu, L., He, Z., & Liu, R. (2018).
Step-3:- Title of Research paper
List the title of research paper using sentence capitalization rules.
Wu, Y., Chen, W., Chen, G., Liu, L., He, Z., & Liu, R. (2018). The Impact of Hybrid Compositional Film/Structure on Organic-Inorganic Perovskite Solar Cells.
Step-4:- Name of Journal
Add Title of the journal, Volume number (Issue number), Inclusive page or paragraph number followed by DOI or URL. Journal title and volume number must be italicised.
Wu, Y., Chen, W., Chen, G., Liu, L., He, Z., & Liu, R. (2018). The Impact of Hybrid Compositional Film/Structure on Organic-Inorganic Perovskite Solar Cells. Nanomaterials, 8(6),356. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano8060356
v Books
Authored work:–
Names of author (as described above). (Year). Title of the work (edition.). (Volume(s).). Publisher.
Example:- Colclough, B., & Colclough, J. (1999). A challenge to change. Thorsons.
Edited work:-
Name of the editor (s). (Eds.). (Year). Title of work: Subtitle (edition.). (Volume(s).). Publisher.
Snyder, C.R. (Ed.). (1999). Coping: The psychology of what works. Oxford University Press.
v Book chapters
Author of the chapter. (Year). Title of chapter or part. Name of the Editor (Eds.), Title: Subtitle of book (edition., inclusive page numbers). Publisher
Example:- Hine, C. (2001). Ethnography in the laboratory. In D. N. Gellner & E. Hirsch (Eds.), Inside organizations: Anthropologists at work (pp. 61-76). Berg.
v Theses
Unpublished:-
Author’s names (Year). Title of thesis: Subtitle [Unpublished thesis type]. Name of University..
Example:- Hos, J. (2005). Mechanochemically synthesized nanomaterials for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell membranes [Unpublished PhD thesis]. The University of Western Australia.
Published:-
Author’s names (Year). Title of thesis: Subtitle. Publisher.
Example:- May, B. (2007). A survey of radial velocities in the zodiacal dust cloud. Canopus Publishing.
From a database:-
Author’s names (Year). Title of thesis: Subtitle (Identifier, if applicable) [Thesis type, Name of University]. Database Name. URL
Example:- Roemmele, M. (2018). Neural networks for narrative continuation (Publication No. 22621448) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
v Internet Documents
Documents published on the internet must be cited according to the specific guidelines for the type of document.
Isn’t amazing that whole our life, we scare from giving credits to the people for their works and coming to research field, first thing your are taught is how to credit others..
copyright@EasMyPhD 2020
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