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= Citation =
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Introduction
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A citation is a reference 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,
Harvard, MLA, NLM, American Sociological Association (ASA), American
Psychological Association (APA), etc.). Each system is associated with
different academic disciplines, and academic journals associated with
these disciplines maintain the relevant citational style by
recommending and adhering to the relevant style guides.
Concept
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A 'bibliographic citation' is a reference to a book, article, web
page, or other published item. Citations should supply sufficient
detail to identify the item uniquely. Different citation systems and
styles are used in scientific citation, legal citation, prior art, the
arts, and the humanities. 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
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Citation content can vary depending on the type of source and may
include:
* 'Book:' authors, book title, place of publication, publisher, date
of publication, and page numbers if appropriate.
* 'Journal:' authors, article title, journal title, date of
publication, and page numbers.
* 'Newspaper:' authors, article title, name of newspaper, section
title and page numbers if desired, date of publication.
* 'Web site:' authors, 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
numbers. 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.
* 'Data:' authors, dataset title, date of publication, and publisher.
Unique identifiers
====================
Along with information such as authors, date of publication, title and
page numbers, citations may also include unique identifiers depending
on the type of work being referred to.
* Citations of books may include an International Standard Book Number
(ISBN).
* Specific volumes, articles, or other identifiable parts of a
periodical, may have an associated Serial Item and Contribution
Identifier (SICI) or an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN).
* Electronic documents may have a digital object identifier (DOI).
* Biomedical research articles may have a PubMed Identifier (PMID).
Systems
======================================================================
Broadly speaking, there are two types of citation systems, the
Vancouver system and parenthetical referencing. However, the Council
of Science Editors (CSE) adds a third, the' citation-name system'.
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. This style makes citing easier and improves the reader's
experience.
Styles
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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, 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 for Plato; Bekker numbers for Aristotle;
citing the Bible by book, chapter and verse; or Shakespeare notation
by play.
The Citation Style Language (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'. It is most widely used in history and economics as
well as some social sciences. The closely related Turabian
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.
* Harvard referencing (or author-date system) is a specific kind of
parenthetical referencing. Parenthetical referencing is recommended by
both the British Standards Institution and the Modern Language
Association. 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 was developed by the Modern Language Association and is
most often used in the arts and the humanities, particularly in
English studies, other literary studies, including comparative
literature and literary criticism in languages other than English
("foreign languages"), and some interdisciplinary studies, such as
cultural studies, drama and theatre, film, and other media, including
television. This style of citations and bibliographical format uses
parenthetical referencing with author-page (Smith 395) or
author-[short] 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 is published by the Modern Humanities Research
Association (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 (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
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* The Bluebook 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' (AKA 'McGill
Guide'), published by 'McGill Law Journal'.
* British legal citation almost universally follows the 'Oxford
Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities' (OSCOLA).
Sciences, mathematics, engineering, physiology, and medicine
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* The American Chemical Society style, or ACS style, is often used in
chemistry and some of the physical sciences. 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 (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 (AMS), or AMS
styles, such as AMS-LaTeX, are typically implemented using the BibTeX
tool in the LaTeX 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. [AB90]. This type of style is also called an "authorship
trigraph".
* The Vancouver system, recommended by the Council of Science Editors
(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/PubMed database
uses this citation style and the National Library of Medicine provides
"ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical
Journals - Sample References".
* The American Medical Association has its own variant of Vancouver
style with only minor differences. See AMA Manual of Style.
* The style of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
(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 (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'), 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) 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.
Social sciences
=================
* The style of the American Psychological Association, or APA style,
published in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological
Association, is most often used in social sciences. APA citation style
is similar to Harvard referencing, 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 publishes both a style
manual and a style guide for publications in this field. The style is
close to the CMOS.
* The American Anthropological Association utilizes a modified form of
the Chicago style laid out in their publishing style guide.
* The ASA style of the American Sociological Association is one of the
main styles used in sociological 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 journals
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. Another study noted
that approximately 25% citations do not support the claims made, a
finding that affects many disciplines, including history.
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 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.
Citation Politics
===================
Another issue is citation politics, which describes how citation
shapes power structures by dictating the legitimacy of published
authors and their work. As ideas are frequently reproduced through
citation, they accrue increasing intellectual value. Research suggests
that the number of times that an academic article gets cited has a
direct impact on the author’s academic prestige and recognition,
promotion opportunities, and potential impact in their respective
fields. The Matthew Effect and Matilda Effect describe phenomena to
this effect.
However, evidence indicates that external factors may influence the
likelihood of a paper getting cited. For example, citation counts have
been shown to favor researchers from the Global North and thus can
undervalue researchers from the Global South and from minority
communities. In addition, male names tend to get cited
disproportionately more frequently than female names. Smith and
Garrett-Scott have also argued that black women in the anthropological
field are rarely ever cited by non-black women.
Researchers have suggested combating inequality in citation politics
with the use of a Citation Diversity Statement, a statement that would
include the proportions of citations used in a scholarly article in
terms of gender, race, and/or ethnicity. Another option is the
formation of campaigns like #CiteBlackWomen that promote awareness of
citational disparity.
Research and development
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There is research about citations and development of related tools and
systems, mainly relating to scientific citations. Citation analysis is
a method widely used in metascience.
License
=========
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License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation
