Writing your thesis/dissertation was a hardship, and even now that it’s over, the hardest part is still ahead of you: referencing your sources! Before you get too hard on yourself, remember that we understand your concern.
This is why we’ve put together a quick tutorial to the three most used citation formats so you can get the most out of them.
What is Citation?
A citation is a means of acknowledging the contributions of persons whose creative and intellectual works you cited or utilized to support your academic study. It may also be utilized to find references and assist your guides/reviewers in determining whether or not there is any plagiarism.
A citation style specifies how a citation should be written and structured, including punctuation and formatting.
Different Types of Citing References-
1. APA (American Psychological Association)
The Humanities, Psychology, and Science fields are the most common users of the APA citation format. This includes-
1. The Work of a Single Author
When acknowledging a single author’s work, start with the author’s last name, then the journal’s or book’s publication year.
2. The Work of Several Authors
When a work has two authors, use both of their last names wherever the work has to be cited. If the names are in parentheses, join them with an ampersand or the word “and” if they are in text.
3. A Work Including More than Five Writers
When citing a work for the first time, enter all of the authors’ names. Only one author’s name should be cited in subsequent citations, followed by the Latin phrase et al. to identify the other writers mentioned before.
4. Several Authors with the Same Surname
When mentioning several writers with the same last name, use their first and middle initials to help readers distinguish between them.
5. Corporation Works
Even if the author’s name appears in such publications, you just need to credit the corporation as the author. When quoting anything for the first time, type it out completely. You can input the abbreviation for future references.
6. Referencing a Website
The fundamental format for citing a source from a website is as follows:
Author surname, initial(s). (Year). Title. Retrieved from URL.
2. Chicago Manual of Style (CMS)
The University of Chicago Press created the Chicago Manual of Style as a standard style. It is mostly utilized in the fields of business, history, and the arts. It includes two methods for citing sources in texts.
1. Notes and Bibliography:
This style is most commonly employed in literature, history, and the arts. Instead of having the source stated within the text itself, like in most other systems, this technique uses footnotes and endnotes on every page.
So you may see the source credentials while reading the paper rather than having to resort to the bibliography section each time you wish to check a source. Whenever you directly quote, paraphrase, or reference an external source, you should include a number in a raised font that corresponds to a note at the bottom of the page.
Each page’s sources are often minimal, providing simply the title of the text and page numbers. The bibliography has a more detailed version.
2. Author-Date:
In the social sciences and sciences, this form of referencing methods is used frequently. In text citations (author, date within parentheses) must relate to a source in the reference list. The reader must be able to cross-reference sources, and complete source information must be provided.
The reference or bibliography section, as previously stated, is where you list all of your sources in the order in which they occur in your work.
Your references should ideally include the following information about your sources, according to the Chicago Style: the title, the author or authors’ names (also relevant to editors, compilers, and translators), and the publishing details. The author’s name is listed first, with the surname (e.g., Stephen Hawking), and the text’s title is italicized.
3. Modern Language Association (MLA)
In literature and language studies, the MLA standard citation guide is widely used. The most recent version of MLA is the 8th edition, which was issued in 2016.
For in-text citations, it uses the author-date system: the author’s last name, followed by the page number of the material you’re citing, both in parentheses. Only page numbers are given in parenthesis if the author’s name is already in the body of your text.
In terms of references, it follows the following general format, which may be modified depending on the source.
Author, Title of source, Container (once again, in italics), version/number, Publisher, Publication Date, Location.
Reasons Behind the Different Types of Citations–
We wouldn’t be shocked if the laborious processes of academics, bewilder you if you’re new to the field. Yes, we’re talking about citations and references. As time goes on, you may discover that various teachers may advise you to utilize different writing styles. What is the reason behind this? That is exactly what we are going to discover.
There are various styles that accommodate to the requirements of each type of research, ranging from well-known styles like APA to particular ones like OSCOLA for law.
Different organizations, journals, and colleges have developed distinct styles, each tailored to a particular field. These styles have been around for decades, and each has grown in popularity.
Disciplines, publications, and universities are all different. Researchers frequently adhere to one method and are hesitant to attempt something new.
Each citation contains information such as the name of the author, publishing data, and so on. But it’s the sequence in which they’re presented that makes all the difference.
This varies depending on what the research seeks to emphasize.
Each of these citation systems has its own set of benefits and drawbacks. The citation system to be used is usually specified by editors.
Bibliographies and other list-like collections of references are typically not regarded citations since they do not meet the real spirit of the term: intentional acknowledgment of the priority of one’s ideas by other authors.
This might seem a bit complicated if you are a beginner. You can always rely on citation generators. They are accurate and gets your job done in seconds.
-Isabell S.
