One of the most overlooked parts of a research paper is citing. A citation is the way you tell your readers that certain material in your work came from another source. It also gives your readers the information necessary to find that source again. Citing is pivotal to credit your sources and acknowledge the work that previous authors have done.
Important: if you do not properly cite your sources, this may be considered plagiarism. So, make sure you do it correctly!
There are three main types of citation styles. You should coordinate with your mentor to determine which is the most relevant to your field between the following:
<aside> ✏️ Note: While deciding on the citation style, ensure you check what style is accepted by your target publication (some targets can be very particular about this).
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Once you have decided your citation style, you will be incorporating citations into your research paper. You will likely cite in your paper in two ways:
An in-text citation is when you refer to, summarize, paraphrase, or quote from another source. For every in-text citation in your paper, there must be a corresponding entry in your reference (works cited) list.
Below is an example of an in-text citation (in bold) following the APA citations style:
“A few researchers in the linguistics field have developed training programs designed to improve native speakers' ability to understand accented speech (Derwing et al., 2002; Thomas, 2004). Their training techniques are based on the research described above indicating that comprehension improves with exposure to non-native speech. Derwing et al. (2002) conducted their training with students preparing to be social workers, but note that other professionals who work with non-native speakers could benefit from a similar program”
To get more information on how to properly do in-text citations based on the citation style that you are using, please visit this website.