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A citation is a
reference
Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''name'' ...
to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of acknowledging the relevance of the works of others to the topic of discussion at the spot where the citation appears.
Generally, the combination of both the in-body citation and the bibliographic entry constitutes what is commonly thought of as a citation (whereas bibliographic entries by themselves are not).
Citations have several important purposes. While their uses for upholding intellectual honesty and bolstering claims are typically foregrounded in teaching materials and style guides (e.g.,), correct attribution of insights to previous sources is just one of these purposes. Linguistic analysis of citation-practices has indicated that they also serve critical roles in orchestrating the state of knowledge on a particular topic, identifying gaps in the existing knowledge that should be filled or describing areas where inquiries should be continued or replicated. Citation has also been identified as a critical means by which researchers establish stance: aligning themselves with or against subgroups of fellow researchers working on similar projects and staking out opportunities for creating new knowledge.
Conventions of citation (e.g., placement of dates within parentheses, superscripted
endnotes vs. footnotes, colons or commas for page numbers, etc.) vary by the citation-system used (e.g.,
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
,
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
,
MLA,
NLM,
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...
(ASA),
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...
(APA), etc.). Each system is associated with different
academic disciplines
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...
, and
academic journals
An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...
associated with these disciplines maintain the relevant citational style by recommending and adhering to the relevant
style guides
A style guide or manual of style is a set of standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents. It is often called a style sheet, although that term also has multiple other meanings. The standards can be applied either for gener ...
.
Concept
A bibliographic citation is a reference to a
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
,
article
Article often refers to:
* Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
* Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication
Article may also refer to:
G ...
,
web page, or other published item. Citations should supply detail to identify the item uniquely. Different citation systems and styles are used in
scientific citation
Scientific citation is providing detailed reference in a scientific publication, typically a paper or book, to previous published (or occasionally private) communications which have a bearing on the subject of the new publication. The purpose of ...
,
legal citation
Legal citation is the practice of crediting and referring to authoritative documents and sources. The most common sources of authority cited are court decisions (cases), statutes, regulations, government documents, treaties, and scholarly writin ...
,
prior art
Prior art (also known as state of the art or background art) is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria f ...
,
the arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
, and the
humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
. Regarding the use of citations in the scientific literature, some scholars also put forward "the right to refuse unwanted citations" in certain situations deemed inappropriate.
Content
Citation content can vary depending on the type of source and may include:
* ''Book:'' author(s), book title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, and page number(s) if appropriate.
* ''Journal:'' author(s), article title, journal title, date of publication, and page number(s).
* ''Newspaper:'' author(s), article title, name of newspaper, section title and page number(s) if desired, date of publication.
* ''Web site:'' author(s), article, and publication title where appropriate, as well as a
URL, and a date when the site was accessed.
* ''Play:'' inline citations offer part, scene, and line numbers, the latter separated by periods: 4.452 refers to scene 4, line 452. For example, "In Eugene Onegin, Onegin rejects Tanya when she is free to be his, and only decides he wants her when she is already married" (Pushkin 4.452–53).
* ''Poem:'' spaced
slashes are normally used to indicate separate lines of a poem, and
parenthetical citations usually include the line number(s). For example: "For I must love because I live / And life in me is what you give." (Brennan, lines 15–16).
[
* ''Interview:'' name of interviewer, interview descriptor (ex. personal interview), and date of interview.
]
Unique identifiers
Along with information such as author(s), date of publication, title and page numbers, citations may also include unique identifier
A unique identifier (UID) is an identifier that is guaranteed to be unique among all identifiers used for those objects and for a specific purpose. The concept was formalized early in the development of computer science and information systems. ...
s depending on the type of work being referred to.
* Citations of books may include an International Standard Book Number
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.
An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition an ...
(ISBN).
* Specific volumes, articles, or other identifiable parts of a periodical, may have an associated Serial Item and Contribution Identifier
The Serial Item and Contribution Identifier (SICI) was a code (ANSI/NISO standard Z39.56-1996 2002 used to uniquely identify specific volumes, articles or other identifiable parts of a serial. It was "intended primarily for use by those member ...
(SICI) or an International Standard Serial Number
An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...
(ISSN).
* Electronic documents may have a digital object identifier
A digital object identifier (DOI) is a persistent identifier or handle used to uniquely identify various objects, standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). DOIs are an implementation of the Handle System; they a ...
(DOI).
* Biomedical research articles may have a PubMed Identifier (PMID
PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...
).
Systems
Broadly speaking, there are two types of citation systems, the Vancouver system and parenthetical referencing. However, the Council of Science Editors
The Council of Science Editors (CSE), formerly the Council of Biology Editors (CBE; 1965–2000) and originally the Conference of Biology Editors (CBE; 1957–1965), is a United States-based nonprofit organization that supports editorial practic ...
(CSE) adds a third, the'' citation-name system''.[Council of Science Editors, Style Manual Committee (2007). Scientific style and format: the CSE manual for authors, editors, and publishers.]
Vancouver system
The Vancouver system uses sequential numbers in the text, either bracketed or superscript or both. The numbers refer to either footnotes (notes at the end of the page) or endnotes (notes on a page at the end of the paper) that provide source detail. The notes system may or may not require a full bibliography, depending on whether the writer has used a full-note form or a shortened-note form. The organizational logic of the bibliography is that sources are listed in their order of appearance in-text, rather than alphabetically by author last name.
For example, an excerpt from the text of a paper using a notes system ''without'' a full bibliography could look like:
:"The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance."1
The note, located either at the foot of the page (footnote) or at the end of the paper (endnote) would look like this:
:1. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, ''On Death and Dying'' (New York: Macmillan, 1969) 45–60.
In a paper with a full bibliography, the shortened note might look like:
:1. Kübler-Ross, ''On Death and Dying'' 45–60.
The bibliography entry, which is required with a shortened note, would look like this:
:Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. ''On Death and Dying''. New York: Macmillan, 1969.
In the humanities, many authors also use footnotes or endnotes to supply anecdotal information. In this way, what looks like a citation is actually supplementary material, or suggestions for further reading.
Parenthetical referencing
Parenthetical referencing, also known as Harvard referencing, has full or partial, in-text, citations enclosed in circular brackets and embedded in the paragraph.
An example of a parenthetical reference:
:"The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance" (Kübler-Ross, 1969, pp. 45–60).
Depending on the choice of style, fully cited parenthetical references may require no end section. Other styles include a list of the citations, with complete bibliographical references, in an end section, sorted alphabetically by author. This section is often called "References", "Bibliography", "Works cited" or "Works consulted".
In-text references for online publications may differ from conventional parenthetical referencing. A full reference can be hidden, only displayed when wanted by the reader, in the form of a tooltip
The tooltip, also known as infotip or hint, is a common graphical user interface (GUI) element in which, when hovering over a screen element or component, a text box displays information about that element, such as a description of a button's f ...
. This style makes citing easier and improves the reader's experience.
Styles
Citation styles can be broadly divided into styles common to the Humanities and the Sciences, though there is considerable overlap. Some style guides, such as the Chicago Manual of Style
''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (abbreviated in writing as ''CMOS'' or ''CMS'', or sometimes as ''Chicago'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 17 editions have prescribed writi ...
, are quite flexible and cover both parenthetical and note citation systems. Others, such as MLA and APA styles, specify formats within the context of a single citation system. These may be referred to as citation formats as well as citation styles. The various guides thus specify order of appearance, for example, of publication date, title, and page numbers following the author name, in addition to conventions of punctuation, use of italics, emphasis, parenthesis, quotation marks, etc., particular to their style.
A number of organizations have created styles to fit their needs; consequently, a number of different guides exist. Individual publishers often have their own in-house variations as well, and some works are so long-established as to have their own citation methods too: Stephanus pagination
Stephanus pagination is a system of reference and organization used in modern editions and translations of Plato (and less famously, Plutarch) based on the three-volume 1578 edition''Platonis opera quae extant omnia'' edidit Henricus Stephanus, Ge ...
for Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
; Bekker numbers
Bekker numbering or Bekker pagination is the standard form of citation to the works of Aristotle. It is based on the page numbers used in the Prussian Academy of Sciences edition of the complete works of Aristotle and takes its name from the ed ...
for Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
; citing the Bible by book, chapter and verse; or Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
notation by play.
The Citation Style Language
The Citation Style Language (CSL) is an open XML-based language to describe the formatting of citations and bibliographies. Reference management programs using CSL include Zotero, Mendeley and Papers. The Pandoc lightweight document conversion s ...
(CSL) is an open XML-based language to describe the formatting of citations and bibliographies.
Humanities
* The Chicago Style (CMOS) was developed and its guide is ''The Chicago Manual of Style
''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (abbreviated in writing as ''CMOS'' or ''CMS'', or sometimes as ''Chicago'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 17 editions have prescribed writi ...
''. It is most widely used in history and economics as well as some social sciences. The closely related Turabian
''A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations'' is a style guide for writing and formatting research papers, theses, and dissertations and is published by the University of Chicago Press.
The work is often referred to as ...
style—which derives from it—is for student references, and is distinguished from the CMOS by omission of quotation marks in reference lists, and mandatory access date citation.
* The Columbia Style was created by Janice R. Walker and Todd Taylor to give detailed guidelines for citing internet sources. Columbia Style offers models for both the humanities and the sciences.
* ''Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace'' by Elizabeth Shown Mills covers primary sources not included in CMOS, such as censuses, court, land, government, business, and church records. Includes sources in electronic format. Used by genealogists and historians.[Elizabeth Shown Mills. ''Evidence Explained : Citing History Sources from Artifacts to cyberspace.'' 2d ed. Baltimore:Genealogical Pub. Co., 2009.]
* Harvard referencing
Parenthetical referencing, is a citation system in which in-text citations are made using parentheses. They are usually accompanied by a full, alphabetized list of citations in an end section, usually titled "references", "reference list", "w ...
(or author-date system) is a specific kind of parenthetical referencing
Parenthetical referencing, is a citation system in which in-text citations are made using parentheses. They are usually accompanied by a full, alphabetized list of citations in an end section, usually titled "references", "reference list", "w ...
. Parenthetical referencing is recommended by both the British Standards Institution
The British Standards Institution (BSI) is the national standards body of the United Kingdom. BSI produces technical standards on a wide range of products and services and also supplies certification and standards-related services to business ...
and the Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "st ...
. Harvard referencing involves a short author-date reference, e.g., "(Smith, 2000)", being inserted after the cited text within parentheses and the full reference to the source being listed at the end of the article.
* MLA style
''MLA Handbook'' (9th ed., 2021), formerly ''MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers'' (1977–2009), establishes a system for documenting sources in scholarly writing. It is published by the Modern Language Association, which is based in the ...
was developed by the Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "st ...
and is most often used in the arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
and the humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
, particularly in English studies
English studies (usually called simply English) is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries; it is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which ...
, other literary studies
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
, including comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...
and literary criticism
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
in languages other than English ("foreign languages
A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a given country, and that native speakers from that country must usually acquire through conscious learning - be this through language lessons at school ...
"), and some interdisciplinary studies, such as cultural studies
Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...
, drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
and theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
, film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
, and other media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...
, including television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
. This style of citations and bibliographical format uses parenthetical referencing with author-page (Smith 395) or author-hort Hort may refer to:
People
* Erik Hort (born 1987), American soccer player
* F. J. A. Hort (1828–1892), Irish theologian
* Greta Hort (1903–1967), Danish-born literature professor
* Josiah Hort (c. 1674–1751), English clergyman of the Chur ...
title-page (Smith, ''Contingencies'' 42) in the case of more than one work by the same author within parentheses in the text, keyed to an alphabetical list of sources on a "Works Cited" page at the end of the paper, as well as notes (footnotes or endnotes).
* The MHRA Style Guide
The ''MHRA Style Guide: A Handbook for Authors, Editors, and Writers of Theses''—formerly the ''MHRA Style Book''—is an academic style guide published by the Modern Humanities Research Association. It is most widely used in the arts and huma ...
is published by the Modern Humanities Research Association
The Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) is a United Kingdom–based international organisation that aims to encourage and promote advanced study and research of humanities. It is most notable for producing the ''MHRA Style Guide''.
His ...
(MHRA) and most widely used in the arts and humanities in the United Kingdom, where the MHRA is based. It is available for sale both in the UK and in the United States. It is similar to MLA style, but has some differences. For example, MHRA style uses footnotes that reference a citation fully while also providing a bibliography. Some readers find it advantageous that the footnotes provide full citations, instead of shortened references, so that they do not need to consult the bibliography while reading for the rest of the publication details.
In some areas of the Humanities, footnotes are used exclusively for references, and their use for conventional footnotes
A note is a string of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document or at the end of a chapter, volume, or the whole text. The note can provide an author's comments on the main text or citations of a reference work in support of th ...
(explanations or examples) is avoided. In these areas, the term "footnote" is actually used as a synonym for "reference", and care must be taken by editors and typesetters to ensure that they understand how the term is being used by their authors.
Law
* The Bluebook
''The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation'' is a style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. It is taught and used at a majority of U.S. law schools and is also used in a majority of federal ...
is a citation system traditionally used in American academic legal writing, and the Bluebook (or similar systems derived from it) are used by many courts. At present, academic legal articles are always footnoted, but motions submitted to courts and court opinions traditionally use inline citations, which are either separate sentences or separate clauses. Inline citations allow readers to quickly determine the strength of a source based on, for example, the court a case was decided in and the year it was decided.
* The legal citation style used almost universally in Canada is based on the ''Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation
The ''Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation'' (''McGill Guide'' or ''Red Book''; french: Manuel canadien de la référence juridique) is a legal citation guide in Canada. It is published by the ''McGill Law Journal'' of the McGill University ...
'' (AKA "McGill Guide"), published by ''McGill Law Journal''.
* British legal citation almost universally follows the ''Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities
The ''Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities'' (''OSCOLA'') is a style guide that provides the modern method of legal citation in the United Kingdom; the style itself is also referred to as OSCOLA. First developed by Peter Bi ...
'' (OSCOLA).
Sciences, mathematics, engineering, physiology, and medicine
* The American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...
style, or ACS style
The ACS Style is a set of standards for writing documents relating to chemistry, including a standard method of citation in academic journal, academic publications, developed by the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Previous editions of the ACS ...
, is often used in Chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
and some of the physical sciences
Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together called the "physical sciences".
Definition
Phy ...
. In ACS style references are numbered in the text and in the reference list, and numbers are repeated throughout the text as needed.
* In the style of the American Institute of Physics
The American Institute of Physics (AIP) promotes science and the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies. Its corpora ...
(AIP style), references are also numbered in the text and in the reference list, with numbers repeated throughout the text as needed.
* Styles developed for the American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
(AMS), or AMS styles, such as AMS-LaTeX
AMS-LaTeX is a collection of LaTeX document classes and packages developed for the American Mathematical Society (AMS). Its additions to LaTeX include the typesetting of multi-line and other mathematical statements, document classes, and fonts c ...
, are typically implemented using the BibTeX
BibTeX is reference management software for formatting lists of references. The BibTeX tool is typically used together with the LaTeX document preparation system. Within the typesetting system, its name is styled as . The name is a portmanteau ...
tool in the LaTeX
Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well.
In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...
typesetting environment. Brackets with the author's initials and year are inserted in the text and at the beginning of the reference. Typical citations are listed in line with alphabetic-label format, e.g. B90 B90 may refer to :
* B90 nuclear bomb
* Sicilian Defence, Najdorf Variation, Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings code
* B90 FM (1990-1993), a radio station in Wellington, New Zealand
* Bündnis 90 (Alliance 90), a German political coalition
* Bunde ...
This type of style is also called an "''Authorship trigraph.''"
* The Vancouver system
The Vancouver system, also known as Vancouver reference style or the author–number system, is a citation style that uses numbers within the text that refer to numbered entries in the reference list. It is popular in the physical sciences and is ...
, recommended by the Council of Science Editors
The Council of Science Editors (CSE), formerly the Council of Biology Editors (CBE; 1965–2000) and originally the Conference of Biology Editors (CBE; 1957–1965), is a United States-based nonprofit organization that supports editorial practic ...
(CSE), is used in medical and scientific papers and research.
** In one major variant, that used by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), citation numbers are included in the text in square brackets rather than as superscripts. All bibliographical information is exclusively included in the list of references at the end of the document, next to the respective citation number.
** The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) is reportedly the original kernel of this biomedical style, which evolved from the Vancouver 1978 editors' meeting. The MEDLINE
MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, or MEDLARS Online) is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information. It includes bibliographic information for articles from academic journals covering medic ...
/PubMed
PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...
database uses this citation style and the National Library of Medicine
The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library.
Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...
provides "ICMJE – Sample References".
* The American Medical Association has its own variant of Vancouver style with only minor differences. See AMA Manual of Style
''AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors'' is the style guide of the American Medical Association. It is written by the editors of ''JAMA'' (''Journal of the American Medical Association'') and the JAMA Network journals and is most ...
.
* The style of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...
(IEEE), or IEEE style, encloses citation numbers within square brackets and numbers them consecutively, with numbers repeated throughout the text as needed.
* In areas of biology that falls within the ICNafp
The ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) is the set of rules and recommendations dealing with the formal botanical names that are given to plants, fungi and a few other groups of organisms, all those "trad ...
(which itself uses this citation style throughout), a variant form of author-title citation is the primary method used when making nomenclatural citations and sometimes general citations (for example in code-related proposals published in ''Taxon
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...
''), with the works in question not cited in the bibliography unless also cited in the text. Titles use standardized abbreviations following ''Botanico-Periodicum-Huntianum'' for periodicals and ''Taxonomic Literature 2'' (later IPNI
The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) describes itself as "a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and lycophytes." Coverage of plant names is best at the rank of species and genus. It inclu ...
) for books.
* Pechenik Citation Style is a style described in ''A Short Guide to Writing about Biology'', 6th ed. (2007), by Jan A. Pechenik.
* In 1955, Eugene Garfield proposed a bibliographic system for scientific literature, to consolidate the integrity of scientific publications
: ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.''
Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scient ...
.
Social sciences
* The style of the American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...
, or APA style
APA style (also known as APA format) is a writing style and format for academic documents such as scholarly journal articles and books. It is commonly used for citing sources within the field of behavioral and social sciences, including sociol ...
, published in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, is most often used in social sciences
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...
. APA citation style is similar to Harvard referencing
Parenthetical referencing, is a citation system in which in-text citations are made using parentheses. They are usually accompanied by a full, alphabetized list of citations in an end section, usually titled "references", "reference list", "w ...
, listing the author's name and year of publication, although these can take two forms: ''name citations'' in which the surnames of the authors appear in the text and the year of publication then appears in parentheses, and ''author-date citations'', in which the surnames of the authors and the year of publication all appear in parentheses. In both cases, in-text citations point to an alphabetical list of sources at the end of the paper in a References section.
* The American Political Science Association
The American Political Science Association (APSA) is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903 in the Tilton Memorial Library (now Tilton Hall) of Tulane University in New Orleans, ...
publishes both a style manual and a style guide for publications in this field.[Stephen Yoder, ed. (2008). ''The APSA Guide to Writing and Publishing'' and ''Style Manual for Political Science''. Rev. ed. August 2006]
APSAnet.org Publications
. Retrieved 2015-09-28. The style is close to the CMOS.
* The American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...
utilizes a modified form of the Chicago Style laid out in their Publishing Style Guide.
* The ASA style
ASA as an abbreviation or initialism may refer to:
Biology and medicine
* Accessible surface area of a biomolecule, accessible to a solvent
* Acetylsalicylic acid, aspirin
* Advanced surface ablation, refractive eye surgery
* Anterior spinal ar ...
of American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...
is one of the main styles used in sociological
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
publications.
Issues
In their research on footnotes in scholarly journals in the field of communication, Michael Bugeja and Daniela V. Dimitrova have found that citations to online sources have a rate of decay (as cited pages are taken down), which they call a "half-life", that renders footnotes in those journals less useful for scholarship over time.
Other experts have found that published replications do not have as many citations as original publications.
Another important issue is citation errors, which often occur due to carelessness on either the researcher or journal editor's part in the publication procedure. For example, a study that analyzed 1,200 randomly selected citations from three major business ethics journal concluded that an average article contains at least three plagiarized citations when authors copy and paste a citation entry from another publication without consulting the original source. Experts have found that simple precautions, such as consulting the author of a cited source about proper citations, reduce the likelihood of citation errors and thus increase the quality of research.
Research suggests the impact of an article can be, partly, explained by superficial factors and not only by the scientific merits of an article. Field-dependent factors are usually listed as an issue to be tackled not only when comparisons across disciplines are made, but also when different fields of research of one discipline are being compared. For example, in medicine, among other factors, the number of authors, the number of references, the article length, and the presence of a colon in the title influence the impact; while in sociology the number of references, the article length, and title length are among the factors.
Studies of methodological quality and reliability have found that "reliability of published research works in several fields may be decreasing with increasing journal rank". Nature Index The Nature Index is a database that tracks institutions and countries and their scientific output since its introduction in November, 2014. Each year, Nature Index ranks the leading institutions (which can be companies, universities, government agen ...
recognizes that citations remain a controversial and yet important metric for academics. They report five ways to increase citation counts: (1) watch the title length and punctuation; (2) release the results early as preprints; (3) avoid referring to a country in the title, abstract, or keywords; (4) link the article to supporting data in a repository; and (5) avoid hyphens in the titles of research articles.
Citation patterns are also known to be affected by unethical behavior of both the authors and journal staff. Such behavior is called impact factor boosting and was reported to involve even the top-tier journals. Specifically the high-ranking journals of medical science, including ''The Lancet'', ''JAMA'' and ''The New England Journal of Medicine'', are thought to be associated with such behavior, with up to 30% of citations to these journals being generated by commissioned opinion articles. On the other hand, the phenomenon of citation cartels is rising. Citation cartels are defined as groups of authors that cite each other disproportionately more than they do other groups of authors who work on the same subject.
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
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