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How to Cite Sources

Here is a complete list for how to cite sources. Most of these guides present citation guidance and examples in MLA, APA, and Chicago.

If you’re looking for general information on MLA or APA citations , the EasyBib Writing Center was designed for you! It has articles on what’s needed in an MLA in-text citation , how to format an APA paper, what an MLA annotated bibliography is, making an MLA works cited page, and much more!

MLA Format Citation Examples

The Modern Language Association created the MLA Style, currently in its 9th edition, to provide researchers with guidelines for writing and documenting scholarly borrowings.  Most often used in the humanities, MLA style (or MLA format ) has been adopted and used by numerous other disciplines, in multiple parts of the world.

MLA provides standard rules to follow so that most research papers are formatted in a similar manner. This makes it easier for readers to comprehend the information. The MLA in-text citation guidelines, MLA works cited standards, and MLA annotated bibliography instructions provide scholars with the information they need to properly cite sources in their research papers, articles, and assignments.

• Book Chapter
• Conference Paper
• Documentary
• Encyclopedia
• Google Images
• Kindle Book
• Memorial Inscription
• Museum Exhibit
• Painting or Artwork
• PowerPoint Presentation
• Sheet Music
• Thesis or Dissertation
• YouTube Video

APA Format Citation Examples

The American Psychological Association created the APA citation style in 1929 as a way to help psychologists, anthropologists, and even business managers establish one common way to cite sources and present content.

APA is used when citing sources for academic articles such as journals, and is intended to help readers better comprehend content, and to avoid language bias wherever possible. The APA style (or APA format ) is now in its 7th edition, and provides citation style guides for virtually any type of resource.

Chicago Style Citation Examples

The Chicago/Turabian style of citing sources is generally used when citing sources for humanities papers, and is best known for its requirement that writers place bibliographic citations at the bottom of a page (in Chicago-format footnotes ) or at the end of a paper (endnotes).

The Turabian and Chicago citation styles are almost identical, but the Turabian style is geared towards student published papers such as theses and dissertations, while the Chicago style provides guidelines for all types of publications. This is why you’ll commonly see Chicago style and Turabian style presented together. The Chicago Manual of Style is currently in its 17th edition, and Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations is in its 8th edition.

Citing Specific Sources or Events

• Declaration of Independence
• Gettysburg Address
• Martin Luther King Jr. Speech
• President Obama’s Farewell Address
• President Trump’s Inauguration Speech
• White House Press Briefing

Additional FAQs

• Citing Archived Contributors
• Citing a Blog
• Citing a Book Chapter
• Citing a Source in a Foreign Language
• Citing an Image
• Citing a Song
• Citing Special Contributors
• Citing a Translated Article
• Citing a Tweet

6 Interesting Citation Facts

The world of citations may seem cut and dry, but there’s more to them than just specific capitalization rules, MLA in-text citations , and other formatting specifications. Citations have been helping researches document their sources for hundreds of years, and are a great way to learn more about a particular subject area.

Ever wonder what sets all the different styles apart, or how they came to be in the first place? Read on for some interesting facts about citations!

1. There are Over 7,000 Different Citation Styles

You may be familiar with MLA and APA citation styles, but there are actually thousands of citation styles used for all different academic disciplines all across the world. Deciding which one to use can be difficult, so be sure to ask you instructor which one you should be using for your next paper.

2. Some Citation Styles are Named After People

While a majority of citation styles are named for the specific organizations that publish them (i.e. APA is published by the American Psychological Association, and MLA format is named for the Modern Language Association), some are actually named after individuals. The most well-known example of this is perhaps Turabian style, named for Kate L. Turabian, an American educator and writer. She developed this style as a condensed version of the Chicago Manual of Style in order to present a more concise set of rules to students.

3. There are Some Really Specific and Uniquely Named Citation Styles

How specific can citation styles get? The answer is very. For example, the “Flavour and Fragrance Journal” style is based on a bimonthly, peer-reviewed scientific journal published since 1985 by John Wiley & Sons. It publishes original research articles, reviews and special reports on all aspects of flavor and fragrance. Another example is “Nordic Pulp and Paper Research,” a style used by an international scientific magazine covering science and technology for the areas of wood or bio-mass constituents.

4. More citations were created on  EasyBib.com  in the first quarter of 2018 than there are people in California.

The US Census Bureau estimates that approximately 39.5 million people live in the state of California. Meanwhile, about 43 million citations were made on EasyBib from January to March of 2018. That’s a lot of citations.

5. “Citations” is a Word With a Long History

The word “citations” can be traced back literally thousands of years to the Latin word “citare” meaning “to summon, urge, call; put in sudden motion, call forward; rouse, excite.” The word then took on its more modern meaning and relevance to writing papers in the 1600s, where it became known as the “act of citing or quoting a passage from a book, etc.”

6. Citation Styles are Always Changing

The concept of citations always stays the same. It is a means of preventing plagiarism and demonstrating where you relied on outside sources. The specific style rules, however, can and do change regularly. For example, in 2018 alone, 46 new citation styles were introduced , and 106 updates were made to exiting styles. At EasyBib, we are always on the lookout for ways to improve our styles and opportunities to add new ones to our list.

Why Citations Matter

Here are the ways accurate citations can help your students achieve academic success, and how you can answer the dreaded question, “why should I cite my sources?”

They Give Credit to the Right People

Citing their sources makes sure that the reader can differentiate the student’s original thoughts from those of other researchers. Not only does this make sure that the sources they use receive proper credit for their work, it ensures that the student receives deserved recognition for their unique contributions to the topic. Whether the student is citing in MLA format , APA format , or any other style, citations serve as a natural way to place a student’s work in the broader context of the subject area, and serve as an easy way to gauge their commitment to the project.

They Provide Hard Evidence of Ideas

Having many citations from a wide variety of sources related to their idea means that the student is working on a well-researched and respected subject. Citing sources that back up their claim creates room for fact-checking and further research . And, if they can cite a few sources that have the converse opinion or idea, and then demonstrate to the reader why they believe that that viewpoint is wrong by again citing credible sources, the student is well on their way to winning over the reader and cementing their point of view.

They Promote Originality and Prevent Plagiarism

The point of research projects is not to regurgitate information that can already be found elsewhere. We have Google for that! What the student’s project should aim to do is promote an original idea or a spin on an existing idea, and use reliable sources to promote that idea. Copying or directly referencing a source without proper citation can lead to not only a poor grade, but accusations of academic dishonesty. By citing their sources regularly and accurately, students can easily avoid the trap of plagiarism , and promote further research on their topic.

They Create Better Researchers

By researching sources to back up and promote their ideas, students are becoming better researchers without even knowing it! Each time a new source is read or researched, the student is becoming more engaged with the project and is developing a deeper understanding of the subject area. Proper citations demonstrate a breadth of the student’s reading and dedication to the project itself. By creating citations, students are compelled to make connections between their sources and discern research patterns. Each time they complete this process, they are helping themselves become better researchers and writers overall.

When is the Right Time to Start Making Citations?

Make in-text/parenthetical citations as you need them.

As you are writing your paper, be sure to include references within the text that correspond with references in a works cited or bibliography. These are usually called in-text citations or parenthetical citations in MLA and APA formats. The most effective time to complete these is directly after you have made your reference to another source. For instance, after writing the line from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities : “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…,” you would include a citation like this (depending on your chosen citation style):

(Dickens 11).

This signals to the reader that you have referenced an outside source. What’s great about this system is that the in-text citations serve as a natural list for all of the citations you have made in your paper, which will make completing the works cited page a whole lot easier. After you are done writing, all that will be left for you to do is scan your paper for these references, and then build a works cited page that includes a citation for each one.

Need help creating an MLA works cited page ? Try the MLA format generator on EasyBib.com! We also have a guide on how to format an APA reference page .

2. Understand the General Formatting Rules of Your Citation Style Before You Start Writing

While reading up on paper formatting may not sound exciting, being aware of how your paper should look early on in the paper writing process is super important. Citation styles can dictate more than just the appearance of the citations themselves, but rather can impact the layout of your paper as a whole, with specific guidelines concerning margin width, title treatment, and even font size and spacing. Knowing how to organize your paper before you start writing will ensure that you do not receive a low grade for something as trivial as forgetting a hanging indent.

Don’t know where to start? Here’s a formatting guide on APA format .

3. Double-check All of Your Outside Sources for Relevance and Trustworthiness First

Collecting outside sources that support your research and specific topic is a critical step in writing an effective paper. But before you run to the library and grab the first 20 books you can lay your hands on, keep in mind that selecting a source to include in your paper should not be taken lightly. Before you proceed with using it to backup your ideas, run a quick Internet search for it and see if other scholars in your field have written about it as well. Check to see if there are book reviews about it or peer accolades. If you spot something that seems off to you, you may want to consider leaving it out of your work. Doing this before your start making citations can save you a ton of time in the long run.

Finished with your paper? It may be time to run it through a grammar and plagiarism checker , like the one offered by EasyBib Plus. If you’re just looking to brush up on the basics, our grammar guides  are ready anytime you are.

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Citation Basics

Harvard Referencing

Plagiarism Basics

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• Knowledge Base
• Referencing

A Quick Guide to Harvard Referencing | Citation Examples

Published on 14 February 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 15 September 2023.

Referencing is an important part of academic writing. It tells your readers what sources you’ve used and how to find them.

Harvard is the most common referencing style used in UK universities. In Harvard style, the author and year are cited in-text, and full details of the source are given in a reference list .

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Table of contents

Harvard in-text citation, creating a harvard reference list, harvard referencing examples, referencing sources with no author or date, frequently asked questions about harvard referencing.

A Harvard in-text citation appears in brackets beside any quotation or paraphrase of a source. It gives the last name of the author(s) and the year of publication, as well as a page number or range locating the passage referenced, if applicable:

Note that ‘p.’ is used for a single page, ‘pp.’ for multiple pages (e.g. ‘pp. 1–5’).

An in-text citation usually appears immediately after the quotation or paraphrase in question. It may also appear at the end of the relevant sentence, as long as it’s clear what it refers to.

When your sentence already mentions the name of the author, it should not be repeated in the citation:

Sources with multiple authors

When you cite a source with up to three authors, cite all authors’ names. For four or more authors, list only the first name, followed by ‘ et al. ’:

Sources with no page numbers

Some sources, such as websites , often don’t have page numbers. If the source is a short text, you can simply leave out the page number. With longer sources, you can use an alternate locator such as a subheading or paragraph number if you need to specify where to find the quote:

Multiple citations at the same point

When you need multiple citations to appear at the same point in your text – for example, when you refer to several sources with one phrase – you can present them in the same set of brackets, separated by semicolons. List them in order of publication date:

Multiple sources with the same author and date

If you cite multiple sources by the same author which were published in the same year, it’s important to distinguish between them in your citations. To do this, insert an ‘a’ after the year in the first one you reference, a ‘b’ in the second, and so on:

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A bibliography or reference list appears at the end of your text. It lists all your sources in alphabetical order by the author’s last name, giving complete information so that the reader can look them up if necessary.

The reference entry starts with the author’s last name followed by initial(s). Only the first word of the title is capitalised (as well as any proper nouns).

Sources with multiple authors in the reference list

As with in-text citations, up to three authors should be listed; when there are four or more, list only the first author followed by ‘ et al. ’:

Reference list entries vary according to source type, since different information is relevant for different sources. Formats and examples for the most commonly used source types are given below.

• Entire book
• Book chapter
• Translated book
• Edition of a book

Journal articles

• Print journal
• Online-only journal with DOI
• Online-only journal with no DOI
• General web page
• Online article or blog
• Social media post

Sometimes you won’t have all the information you need for a reference. This section covers what to do when a source lacks a publication date or named author.

No publication date

When a source doesn’t have a clear publication date – for example, a constantly updated reference source like Wikipedia or an obscure historical document which can’t be accurately dated – you can replace it with the words ‘no date’:

Note that when you do this with an online source, you should still include an access date, as in the example.

When a source lacks a clearly identified author, there’s often an appropriate corporate source – the organisation responsible for the source – whom you can credit as author instead, as in the Google and Wikipedia examples above.

When that’s not the case, you can just replace it with the title of the source in both the in-text citation and the reference list:

Harvard referencing uses an author–date system. Sources are cited by the author’s last name and the publication year in brackets. Each Harvard in-text citation corresponds to an entry in the alphabetised reference list at the end of the paper.

Vancouver referencing uses a numerical system. Sources are cited by a number in parentheses or superscript. Each number corresponds to a full reference at the end of the paper.

A Harvard in-text citation should appear in brackets every time you quote, paraphrase, or refer to information from a source.

The citation can appear immediately after the quotation or paraphrase, or at the end of the sentence. If you’re quoting, place the citation outside of the quotation marks but before any other punctuation like a comma or full stop.

In Harvard referencing, up to three author names are included in an in-text citation or reference list entry. When there are four or more authors, include only the first, followed by ‘ et al. ’

Though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a difference in meaning:

• A reference list only includes sources cited in the text – every entry corresponds to an in-text citation .
• A bibliography also includes other sources which were consulted during the research but not cited.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2023, September 15). A Quick Guide to Harvard Referencing | Citation Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 15 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/referencing/harvard-style/

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An innovative new tool that checks your APA citations with AI software. Say goodbye to inaccurate citations!

• MJC Library & Learning Center
• Research Guides

Format Your Paper & Cite Your Sources

• APA Style, 7th Edition
• Citing Sources
• Avoid Plagiarism
• MLA Style (8th/9th ed.)

APA Tutorial

Formatting your paper, headings organize your paper (2.27), video tutorials, reference list format (9.43).

• Elements of a Reference

Reference Examples (Chapter 10)

Dois and urls (9.34-9.36), in-text citations.

• In-Text Citations Format
• In-Text Citations for Specific Source Types

NoodleTools

• Chicago Style
• Harvard Style
• Other Styles
• Annotated Bibliographies
• How to Create an Attribution

What is APA Style?

APA style was created by social and behavioral scientists to standardize scientific writing. APA style is most often used in:

• psychology,
• social sciences (sociology, business), and

If you're taking courses in any of these areas, be prepared to use APA style.

For in-depth guidance on using this citation style, refer to Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 7th ed. We have several copies available at the MJC Library at the call number  BF 76.7 .P83 2020 .

APA Style, 7th ed.

In October 2019, the American Psychological Association made radical changes its style, especially with regard to the format and citation rules for students writing academic papers. Use this guide to learn how to format and cite your papers using APA Style, 7th edition.

You can start by viewing the  video tutorial .

For help on all aspects of formatting your paper in APA Style, see   The Essentials  page on the APA Style website.

• sans serif fonts such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode, or
• serif fonts such as 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or normal (10-point) Computer Modern (the default font for LaTeX)
• There are exceptions for the  title page ,  tables ,  figures ,  footnotes , and  displayed equations .
• Margins :  Use 1-in. margins on every side of the page.
• Align the text of an APA Style  paper to the left margin . Leave the right margin uneven, or “ragged.”
• Do not use full justification for student papers.
• Do not insert hyphens (manual breaks) in words at the end of line. However, it is acceptable if your word-processing program automatically inserts breaks in long hyperlinks (such as in a DOI or URL in a reference list entry).
• Indent the first line of each paragraph of text 0.5 in . from the left margin. Use the tab key or the automatic paragraph-formatting function of your word-processing program to achieve the indentation (the default setting is likely already 0.5 in.). Do not use the space bar to create indentation. 
• There are exceptions for the  title page ,  section labels ,  abstract ,  block quotations ,  headings ,  tables and figures ,  reference list , and  appendices .

Paper Elements

Student papers generally include, at a minimum: 

• Title Page (2.3)
• Text (2.11)
• References  (2.12)

Student papers may include additional elements such as tables and figures depending on the assignment. So, please check with your teacher!

Student papers generally  DO NOT  include the following unless your teacher specifically requests it:

• Running head
• Author note

For complete information on the  order of pages , see the APA Style website.

Number your pages consecutively starting with page 1. Each section begins on a new page. Put the pages in the following order:

• Page 1: Title page
• Page 2: Abstract (if your teacher requires an abstract)
• Page 3: Text 
• References begin on a new page after the last page of text
• Footnotes begin on a new page after the references (if your teacher requires footnotes)
• Tables begin each on a new page after the footnotes (if your teacher requires tables) 
• Figures begin on a new page after the tables (if your teacher requires figures)
• Appendices begin on a new page after the tables and/or figures (if your teacher requires appendices)

Sample Papers With Built-In Instructions

To see what your paper should look like, check out these sample papers with built-in instructions.

APA Style uses five (5) levels of headings to help you organize your paper and allow your audience to identify its key points easily. Levels of headings establish the hierarchy of your sections just like you did in your paper outline.

APA tells us to use "only the number of headings necessary to differentiate distinct section in your paper." Therefore, the number of heading levels you create depends on the length and complexity of your paper.

See the chart below for instructions on formatting your headings:

Use Word to Format Your Paper:

Use Google Docs to Format Your Paper:

Placement:  The reference list  appears at the end of the paper, on its own page(s). If your research paper ends on page 8, your References begin on page 9.

Heading:  Place the section label References  in bold at the top of the page, centered.

Arrangement:  Alphabetize entries by author's last name. If source has no named author, alphabetize by the title, ignoring A, An, or The. (9.44-9.48)

Spacing:  Like the rest of the APA paper, the reference list is double-spaced throughout. Be sure NOT to add extra spaces between citations.

Indentation:  To make citations easier to scan, add a  hanging indent  of 0.5 in. to any citation that runs more than one line. Use the paragraph-formatting function of your word processing program to create your hanging indent.  

See Sample References Page (from APA Sample Student Paper):

Elements of Reference List Entries: (Chapter 9)

References generally have four elements, each of which has a corresponding question for you to answer:

• Author:   Who is responsible for this work? (9.7-9.12)
• Date:   When was this work published? (9.13-9.17)
• Title:   What is this work called? (9.18-9.22)
• Source:   Where can I retrieve this work? (9.23-9.37)

By using these four elements and answering these four questions, you should be able to create a citation for any type of source.

For complete information on all of these elements, checkout the APA Style website.

This infographic shows the first page of a journal article. The locations of the reference elements are highlighted with different colors and callouts, and the same colors are used in the reference list entry to show how the entry corresponds to the source.

To create your references, you'll simple look for these elements in your source and put them together in your reference list entry.

American Psychological Association.  Example of where to find reference information for a journal article  [Infographic]. APA Style Center. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/basic-principles

Below you'll find two printable handouts showing APA citation examples. The first is an abbreviated list created by MJC Librarians. The second, which is more comprehensive, is from the APA Style website. Feel free to print these for your convenience or use the links to reference examples below:

• APA Citation Examples Created by MJC Librarians for you.
• Common References Examples (APA Handout) Printable handout from the American Psychological Association.
• APA Style Quick Reference Guide See how to format three typical types of references.
• Journal Article
• Magazine Article
• Newspaper Article
• Edited Book Chapter
• Webpage on a Website

Classroom or Intranet Sources

• Classroom Course Pack Materials
• How to Cite ChatGPT
• Dictionary Entry
• Government Report
• Legal References (Laws & Cases)
• TED Talk References
• Religious Works
• Open Educational Resources (OER)
• Archival Documents and Collections

You can view the entire Reference Examples website below and view a helpful guide to finding useful APA style topics easily:

• APA Style: Reference Examples
• Navigating the not-so-hidden treasures of the APA Style website
• Missing Reference Information

Sometimes you won't be able to find all the elements required for your reference. In that case, see the  instructions in Table 9.1 of the APA style manual in section 9.4 or the APA Style website below:

• Direct Quotation of Material Without Page Numbers

The DOI or URL is the final component of a reference list entry. Because so much scholarship is available and/or retrieved online, most reference list entries end with either a DOI or a URL.

• A  DOI  is a unique alphanumeric string that identifies content and provides a persistent link to its location on the internet. DOIs can be found in database records and the reference lists of published works.
• A  URL  specifies the location of digital information on the internet and can be found in the address bar of your internet browser. URLs in references should link directly to the cited work when possible.

When to Include DOIs and URLs:

• Include a DOI for all works that have a DOI, regardless of whether you used the online version or the print version.
• If an online work has both a DOI and a URL, include only the DOI.
• For works without DOIs from websites (not including academic research databases), provide a URL in the reference (as long as the URL will work for readers).
• For works without DOIs from most academic research databases, do not include a URL or database information in the reference because these works are widely available. The reference should be the same as the reference for a print version of the work.
• For works from databases that publish original, proprietary material available only in that database (such as the UpToDate database) or for works of limited circulation in databases (such as monographs in the ERIC database), include the name of the database or archive and the URL of the work. If the URL requires a login or is session-specific (meaning it will not resolve for readers), provide the URL of the database or archive home page or login page instead of the URL for the work. (See APA Section 9.30 for more information). 
• If the URL is no longer working or no longer provides readers access to the content you intend to cite, try to find an archived version using the Internet Archive , then use the archived URL. If there is no archived URL, do not use that resource.

Format of DOIs and URLs:

Your DOI should look like this: 

https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040251

Follow these guidelines from the APA Style website.

APA Style uses the  author–date citation system , in which a brief in-text citation points your reader to the full reference list entry at the end of your paper. The in-text citation appears within the body of the paper and briefly identifies the cited work by its author and date of publication. This method enables your reader to locate the corresponding entry in the alphabetical reference list at the end of your paper.

Each work you cite  must  appear in the reference list, and each work in the reference list must be cited in the text (or in a table, figure, footnote, or appendix) except for the following (See APA, 8.4):

• Personal communications (8.9)
• General mentions of entire websites, whole periodicals (8.22), and common software and apps (10.10) in the text do not require a citation or reference list entry.
• The source of an epigraph does not usually appear in the reference list (8.35)
• Quotations from your research participants do not need citations or reference list entries (8.36)
• References included in a statistical meta-analysis, which are marked with an asterisk in the reference list, may be cited in the text (or not) at the author’s discretion. This exception is relevant only to authors who are conducting a meta-analysis (9.52).

Formatting Your In-Text Citations

Parenthetical and Narrative Citations: ( See APA Section  8.11)

In APA style you use the author-date citation system for citing references within your paper. You incorporate these references using either a  parenthetical   or a  narrative  style.

Parenthetical Citations

• In parenthetical citations, the author name and publication date appear in parentheses, separated by a comma. (Jones, 2018)
• A parenthetical citation can appear within or at the end of a sentence.
• When the parenthetical citation is at the end of the sentence, put the period or other end punctuation after the closing parenthesis.
• If there is no author, use the first few words of the reference list entry, usually the "Title" of the source: ("Autism," 2008) See APA 8.14
• When quoting, always provide the author, year, and specific page citation or paragraph number for nonpaginated materials in the text (Santa Barbara, 2010, p. 243).  See APA 8.13
• For most citations, the parenthetical reference is placed BEFORE the punctuation: Magnesium can be effective in treating PMS (Haggerty, 2012).

Narrative Citations 

In narrative citations, the author name or title of your source appears within your text and the publication date appears in parentheses immediately after the author name. 

• Santa Barbara (2010) noted a decline in the approval of disciplinary spanking of 26 percentage points from 1968 to 1994.

In-Text Citation Checklist

• In-Text Citation Checklist Use this useful checklist from the American Psychological Association to ensure that you've created your in-text citations correctly.

In-Text Citations for Specific Types of Sources

Quotations from Research Participants

Personal Communications

Secondary Sources  

Use NoodleTools to Cite Your Sources  

NoodleTools can help you create your references and your in-text citations.

• NoodleTools Express No sign in required . When you need one or two quick citations in MLA, APA, or Chicago style, simply generate them in NoodleTools Express then copy and paste what you need into your document. Note: Citations are not saved and cannot be exported to a word processor using NoodleTools Express.
• NoodleTools (Login Full Database) This link opens in a new window Create and organize your research notes, share and collaborate on research projects, compose and error check citations, and complete your list of works cited in MLA, APA, or Chicago style using the full version of NoodleTools. You'll need to Create a Personal ID and password the first time you use NoodleTools.

See How to Use NoodleTools Express to Create a Citation in APA Format

Additional NoodleTools Help

• NoodleTools Help Desk Look up questions and answers on the NoodleTools Web site
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• Last Updated: Apr 18, 2024 12:04 PM
• URL: https://libguides.mjc.edu/citeyoursources

Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-NC 4.0 Licenses .

Citing sources: Overview

• Citation style guides

Manage your references

Use these tools to help you organize and cite your references:

• Citation Management and Writing Tools

If you have questions after consulting this guide about how to cite, please contact your advisor/professor or the writing and communication center .

Why citing is important

It's important to cite sources you used in your research for several reasons:

• To show your reader you've done proper research by listing sources you used to get your information
• To be a responsible scholar by giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas
• To avoid plagiarism by quoting words and ideas used by other authors
• To allow your reader to track down the sources you used by citing them accurately in your paper by way of footnotes, a bibliography or reference list

About citations

Citing a source means that you show, within the body of your text, that you took words, ideas, figures, images, etc. from another place.

Citations are a short way to uniquely identify a published work (e.g. book, article, chapter, web site).  They are found in bibliographies and reference lists and are also collected in article and book databases.

Citations consist of standard elements, and contain all the information necessary to identify and track down publications, including:

• author name(s)
• titles of books, articles, and journals
• date of publication
• page numbers
• volume and issue numbers (for articles)

Citations may look different, depending on what is being cited and which style was used to create them. Choose an appropriate style guide for your needs.  Here is an example of an article citation using four different citation styles.  Notice the common elements as mentioned above:

Author - R. Langer

Article Title - New Methods of Drug Delivery

Source Title - Science

Volume and issue - Vol 249, issue 4976

Publication Date - 1990

Page numbers - 1527-1533

American Chemical Society (ACS) style:

Langer, R. New Methods of Drug Delivery. Science 1990 , 249 , 1527-1533.

IEEE Style:

R. Langer, " New Methods of Drug Delivery," Science , vol. 249 , pp. 1527-1533 , SEP 28, 1990 .

American Psychological Association   (APA) style:

Langer, R. (1990) . New methods of drug delivery. Science , 249 (4976), 1527-1533.

Modern Language Association (MLA) style:

Langer, R. " New Methods of Drug Delivery." Science 249.4976 (1990) : 1527-33.

What to cite

You must cite:

• Facts, figures, ideas, or other information that is not common knowledge

Publications that must be cited include:  books, book chapters, articles, web pages, theses, etc.

Another person's exact words should be quoted and cited to show proper credit 

When in doubt, be safe and cite your source!

Avoiding plagiarism

Plagiarism occurs when you borrow another's words (or ideas) and do not acknowledge that you have done so. In this culture, we consider our words and ideas intellectual property; like a car or any other possession, we believe our words belong to us and cannot be used without our permission.

Plagiarism is a very serious offense. If it is found that you have plagiarized -- deliberately or inadvertently -- you may face serious consequences. In some instances, plagiarism has meant that students have had to leave the institutions where they were studying.

The best way to avoid plagiarism is to cite your sources - both within the body of your paper and in a bibliography of sources you used at the end of your paper.

Some useful links about plagiarism:

• MIT Academic Integrity Overview on citing sources and avoiding plagiarism at MIT.
• Avoiding Plagiarism From the MIT Writing and Communication Center.
• Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It From Indiana University's Writing Tutorial Services.
• Plagiarism- Overview A resource from Purdue University.
• Next: Citation style guides >>
• Last Updated: Jan 16, 2024 7:02 AM
• URL: https://libguides.mit.edu/citing

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How to Cite a Research Paper

Last Updated: March 29, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was reviewed by Gerald Posner and by wikiHow staff writer, Jennifer Mueller, JD . Gerald Posner is an Author & Journalist based in Miami, Florida. With over 35 years of experience, he specializes in investigative journalism, nonfiction books, and editorials. He holds a law degree from UC College of the Law, San Francisco, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley. He’s the author of thirteen books, including several New York Times bestsellers, the winner of the Florida Book Award for General Nonfiction, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. He was also shortlisted for the Best Business Book of 2020 by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 412,689 times.

When writing a paper for a research project, you may need to cite a research paper you used as a reference. The basic information included in your citation will be the same across all styles. However, the format in which that information is presented is somewhat different depending on whether you're using American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA), Chicago, or American Medical Association (AMA) style.

Referencing a Research Paper

• In APA style, cite the paper: Last Name, First Initial. (Year). Title. Publisher.
• In Chicago style, cite the paper: Last Name, First Name. “Title.” Publisher, Year.
• In MLA style, cite the paper: Last Name, First Name. “Title.” Publisher. Year.

Citation Help

• For example: "Kringle, K., & Frost, J."

• For example: "Kringle, K., & Frost, J. (2012)."
• If the date, or any other information, are not available, use the guide at https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/05/missing-pieces.html .

• For example: "Kringle, K., & Frost, J. (2012). Red noses, warm hearts: The glowing phenomenon among North Pole reindeer."
• If you found the research paper in a database maintained by a university, corporation, or other organization, include any index number assigned to the paper in parentheses after the title. For example: "Kringle, K., & Frost, J. (2012). Red noses, warm hearts: The glowing phenomenon among North Pole reindeer. (Report No. 1234)."

• For example: "Kringle, K., & Frost, J. (2012). Red noses, warm hearts: The glowing phenomenon among North Pole reindeer. (Report No. 1234). Retrieved from Alaska University Library Archives, December 24, 2017."

• For example: "(Kringle & Frost, 2012)."
• If there was no date on the research paper, use the abbreviation n.d. : "(Kringle & Frost, n.d.)."

• For example: "Kringle, Kris, and Jack Frost."

• For example: "Kringle, Kris, and Jack Frost. "Red Noses, Warm Hearts: The Glowing Phenomenon among North Pole Reindeer." Master's thesis."

• For example: "Kringle, Kris, and Jack Frost. "Red Noses, Warm Hearts: The Glowing Phenomenon among North Pole Reindeer." Master's thesis, Alaska University, 2012."

• For example: "Kringle, Kris, and Jack Frost. "Red Noses, Warm Hearts: The Glowing Phenomenon among North Pole Reindeer." Master's thesis, Alaska University, 2012. Accessed at https://www.northpolemedical.com/raising_rudolf."

• Footnotes are essentially the same as the full citation, although the first and last names of the authors aren't inverted.
• For parenthetical citations, Chicago uses the Author-Date format. For example: "(Kringle and Frost 2012)."

• For example: "Kringle, Kris, and Frost, Jack."

• For example: "Kringle, Kris, and Frost, Jack. "Red Noses, Warm Hearts: The Glowing Phenomenon Among North Pole Reindeer.""

• For example, suppose you found the paper in a collection of paper housed in university archives. Your citation might be: "Kringle, Kris, and Frost, Jack. "Red Noses, Warm Hearts: The Glowing Phenomenon Among North Pole Reindeer." Master's Theses 2000-2010. University of Alaska Library Archives. Accessed December 24, 2017."

• For example: "(Kringle & Frost, p. 33)."

• For example: "Kringle K, Frost J."

• For example: "Kringle K, Frost J. Red noses, warm hearts: The glowing phenomenon among North Pole reindeer."

• For example: "Kringle K, Frost J. Red noses, warm hearts: The glowing phenomenon among North Pole reindeer. Nat Med. 2012; 18(9): 1429-1433."

• For example, if you're citing a paper presented at a conference, you'd write: "Kringle K, Frost J. Red noses, warm hearts: The glowing phenomenon among North Pole reindeer. Oral presentation at Arctic Health Association Annual Summit; December, 2017; Nome, Alaska."
• To cite a paper you read online, you'd write: "Kringle K, Frost J. Red noses, warm hearts: The glowing phenomenon among North Pole reindeer. https://www.northpolemedical.com/raising_rudolf"

• For example: "According to Kringle and Frost, these red noses indicate a subspecies of reindeer native to Alaska and Canada that have migrated to the North Pole and mingled with North Pole reindeer. 1 "

Community Q&A

• If you used a manual as a source in your research paper, you'll need to learn how to cite the manual also. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you use any figures in your research paper, you'll also need to know the proper way to cite them in MLA, APA, AMA, or Chicago. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://askus.library.wwu.edu/faq/116659
• ↑ https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/apaquickguide/intext
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html
• ↑ https://libanswers.snhu.edu/faq/48009
• ↑ https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_in_text_citations_the_basics.html
• ↑ https://morningside.libguides.com/MLA8/location
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/ama_style/index.html

About This Article

To cite a paper APA style, start with the author's last name and first initial, and the year of publication. Then, list the title of the paper, where you found it, and the date that you accessed it. In a paper, use a parenthetical reference with the last name of the author and the publication year. For an MLA citation, list the author's last name and then first name and the title of the paper in quotations. Include where you accessed the paper and the date you retrieved it. In your paper, use a parenthetical reference with the author's last name and the page number. Keep reading for tips on Chicago and AMA citations and exceptions to the citation rules! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Reference List: Common Reference List Examples

Article (with doi).

Alvarez, E., & Tippins, S. (2019). Socialization agents that Puerto Rican college students use to make financial decisions. Journal of Social Change , 11 (1), 75–85. https://doi.org/10.5590/JOSC.2019.11.1.07

Laplante, J. P., & Nolin, C. (2014). Consultas and socially responsible investing in Guatemala: A case study examining Maya perspectives on the Indigenous right to free, prior, and informed consent. Society & Natural Resources , 27 , 231–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2013.861554

Use the DOI number for the source whenever one is available. DOI stands for "digital object identifier," a number specific to the article that can help others locate the source. In APA 7, format the DOI as a web address. Active hyperlinks for DOIs and URLs should be used for documents meant for screen reading. Present these hyperlinks in blue and underlined text (the default formatting in Microsoft Word), although plain black text is also acceptable. Be consistent in your formatting choice for DOIs and URLs throughout your reference list. Also see our Quick Answer FAQ, "Can I use the DOI format provided by library databases?"

Jerrentrup, A., Mueller, T., Glowalla, U., Herder, M., Henrichs, N., Neubauer, A., & Schaefer, J. R. (2018). Teaching medicine with the help of “Dr. House.” PLoS ONE , 13 (3), Article e0193972. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193972

For journal articles that are assigned article numbers rather than page ranges, include the article number in place of the page range.

For more on citing electronic resources, see  Electronic Sources References .

Article (Without DOI)

Found in a common academic research database or in print.

Casler , T. (2020). Improving the graduate nursing experience through support on a social media platform. MEDSURG Nursing , 29 (2), 83–87.

If an article does not have a DOI and you retrieved it from a common academic research database through the university library, there is no need to include any additional electronic retrieval information. The reference list entry looks like the entry for a print copy of the article. (This format differs from APA 6 guidelines that recommended including the URL of a journal's homepage when the DOI was not available.) Note that APA 7 has additional guidance on reference list entries for articles found only in specific databases or archives such as Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, UpToDate, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, and university archives. See APA 7, Section 9.30 for more information.

Found on an Open Access Website

Eaton, T. V., & Akers, M. D. (2007). Whistleblowing and good governance. CPA Journal , 77 (6), 66–71. http://archives.cpajournal.com/2007/607/essentials/p58.htm

Provide the direct web address/URL to a journal article found on the open web, often on an open access journal's website. In APA 7, active hyperlinks for DOIs and URLs should be used for documents meant for screen reading. Present these hyperlinks in blue and underlined text (the default formatting in Microsoft Word), although plain black text is also acceptable. Be consistent in your formatting choice for DOIs and URLs throughout your reference list.

Weinstein, J. A. (2010).  Social change  (3rd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.

If the book has an edition number, include it in parentheses after the title of the book. If the book does not list any edition information, do not include an edition number. The edition number is not italicized.

American Nurses Association. (2015). Nursing: Scope and standards of practice (3rd ed.).

If the author and publisher are the same, only include the author in its regular place and omit the publisher.

Lencioni, P. (2012). The advantage: Why organizational health trumps everything else in business . Jossey-Bass. https://amzn.to/343XPSJ

As a change from APA 6 to APA 7, it is no longer necessary to include the ebook format in the title. However, if you listened to an audiobook and the content differs from the text version (e.g., abridged content) or your discussion highlights elements of the audiobook (e.g., narrator's performance), then note that it is an audiobook in the title element in brackets. For ebooks and online audiobooks, also include the DOI number (if available) or nondatabase URL but leave out the electronic retrieval element if the ebook was found in a common academic research database, as with journal articles. APA 7 allows for the shortening of long DOIs and URLs, as shown in this example. See APA 7, Section 9.36 for more information.

Chapter in an Edited Book

Poe, M. (2017). Reframing race in teaching writing across the curriculum. In F. Condon & V. A. Young (Eds.), Performing antiracist pedagogy in rhetoric, writing, and communication (pp. 87–105). University Press of Colorado.

Include the page numbers of the chapter in parentheses after the book title.

Christensen, L. (2001). For my people: Celebrating community through poetry. In B. Bigelow, B. Harvey, S. Karp, & L. Miller (Eds.), Rethinking our classrooms: Teaching for equity and justice (Vol. 2, pp. 16–17). Rethinking Schools.

Also include the volume number or edition number in the parenthetical information after the book title when relevant.

Freud, S. (1961). The ego and the id. In J. Strachey (Ed.),  The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud  (Vol. 19, pp. 3-66). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1923)

When a text has been republished as part of an anthology collection, after the author’s name include the date of the version that was read. At the end of the entry, place the date of the original publication inside parenthesis along with the note “original work published.” For in-text citations of republished work, use both dates in the parenthetical citation, original date first with a slash separating the years, as in this example: Freud (1923/1961). For more information on reprinted or republished works, see APA 7, Sections 9.40-9.41.

Classroom Resources

Citing classroom resources.

If you need to cite content found in your online classroom, use the author (if there is one listed), the year of publication (if available), the title of the document, and the main URL of Walden classrooms. For example, you are citing study notes titled "Health Effects of Exposure to Forest Fires," but you do not know the author's name, your reference entry will look like this:

Health effects of exposure to forest fires [Lecture notes]. (2005). Walden University Canvas. https://waldenu.instructure.com

If you do know the author of the document, your reference will look like this:

Smith, A. (2005). Health effects of exposure to forest fires [PowerPoint slides]. Walden University Canvas. https://waldenu.instructure.com  

A few notes on citing course materials:

• [Lecture notes]
• [Course handout]
• [Study notes]
• It can be difficult to determine authorship of classroom documents. If an author is listed on the document, use that. If the resource is clearly a product of Walden (such as the course-based videos), use Walden University as the author. If you are unsure or if no author is indicated, place the title in the author spot, as above.
• If you cannot determine a date of publication, you can use n.d. (for "no date") in place of the year.

Note:  The web location for Walden course materials is not directly retrievable without a password, and therefore, following APA guidelines, use the main URL for the class sites: https://class.waldenu.edu.

Citing Tempo Classroom Resources

Clear author: 

Smith, A. (2005). Health effects of exposure to forest fires [PowerPoint slides]. Walden University Brightspace. https://mytempo.waldenu.edu

Unclear author:

Health effects of exposure to forest fires [Lecture notes]. (2005). Walden University Brightspace. https://mytempo.waldenu.edu

Conference Sessions and Presentations

Feinman, Y. (2018, July 27). Alternative to proctoring in introductory statistics community college courses [Poster presentation]. Walden University Research Symposium, Minneapolis, MN, United States. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/symposium2018/23/

Torgerson, K., Parrill, J., & Haas, A. (2019, April 5-9). Tutoring strategies for online students [Conference session]. The Higher Learning Commission Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, United States. http://onlinewritingcenters.org/scholarship/torgerson-parrill-haas-2019/

Dictionary Entry

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Leadership. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary . Retrieved May 28, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leadership

When constructing a reference for an entry in a dictionary or other reference work that has no byline (i.e., no named individual authors), use the name of the group—the institution, company, or organization—as author (e.g., Merriam Webster, American Psychological Association, etc.). The name of the entry goes in the title position, followed by "In" and the italicized name of the reference work (e.g., Merriam-Webster.com dictionary , APA dictionary of psychology ). In this instance, APA 7 recommends including a retrieval date as well for this online source since the contents of the page change over time. End the reference entry with the specific URL for the defined word.

Discussion Board Post

Osborne, C. S. (2010, June 29). Re: Environmental responsibility [Discussion post]. Walden University Canvas.  https://waldenu.instructure.com  

Dissertations or Theses

Retrieved From a Database

Nalumango, K. (2019). Perceptions about the asylum-seeking process in the United States after 9/11 (Publication No. 13879844) [Doctoral dissertation, Walden University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Retrieved From an Institutional or Personal Website

Evener. J. (2018). Organizational learning in libraries at for-profit colleges and universities [Doctoral dissertation, Walden University]. ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6606&context=dissertations

Unpublished Dissertation or Thesis

Kirwan, J. G. (2005). An experimental study of the effects of small-group, face-to-face facilitated dialogues on the development of self-actualization levels: A movement towards fully functional persons [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center.

For further examples and information, see APA 7, Section 10.6.

Legal Material

For legal references, APA follows the recommendations of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation , so if you have any questions beyond the examples provided in APA, seek out that resource as well.

Court Decisions

Reference format:

Name v. Name, Volume Reporter Page (Court Date). URL

Sample reference entry:

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483

Sample citation:

In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in schools unconstitutional.

Note: Italicize the case name when it appears in the text of your paper.

Name of Act, Title Source § Section Number (Year). URL

Sample reference entry for a federal statute:

Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. (2004). https://www.congress.gov/108/plaws/publ446/PLAW-108publ446.pdf

Sample reference entry for a state statute:

Minnesota Nurse Practice Act, Minn. Stat. §§ 148.171 et seq. (2019). https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/148.171

Sample citation: Minnesota nurses must maintain current registration in order to practice (Minnesota Nurse Practice Act, 2010).

Note: The § symbol stands for "section." Use §§ for sections (plural). To find this symbol in Microsoft Word, go to "Insert" and click on Symbol." Look in the Latin 1-Supplement subset. Note: U.S.C. stands for "United States Code." Note: The Latin abbreviation " et seq. " means "and what follows" and is used when the act includes the cited section and ones that follow. Note: List the chapter first followed by the section or range of sections.

Unenacted Bills and Resolutions

(Those that did not pass and become law)

Title [if there is one], bill or resolution number, xxx Cong. (year). URL

Sample reference entry for Senate bill:

Anti-Phishing Act, S. 472, 109th Cong. (2005). https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/472

Sample reference entry for House of Representatives resolution:

Anti-Phishing Act, H.R. 1099, 109th Cong. (2005). https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/1099

The Anti-Phishing Act (2005) proposed up to 5 years prison time for people running Internet scams.

These are the three legal areas you may be most apt to cite in your scholarly work. For more examples and explanation, see APA 7, Chapter 11.

Magazine Article

Clay, R. (2008, June). Science vs. ideology: Psychologists fight back about the misuse of research. Monitor on Psychology , 39 (6). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/06/ideology

Note that for citations, include only the year: Clay (2008). For magazine articles retrieved from a common academic research database, leave out the URL. For magazine articles from an online news website that is not an online version of a print magazine, follow the format for a webpage reference list entry.

Newspaper Article (Retrieved Online)

Baker, A. (2014, May 7). Connecticut students show gains in national tests. New York Times . http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/nyregion/national-assessment-of-educational-progress-results-in-Connecticut-and-New-Jersey.html

Include the full date in the format Year, Month Day. Do not include a retrieval date for periodical sources found on websites. Note that for citations, include only the year: Baker (2014). For newspaper articles retrieved from a common academic research database, leave out the URL. For newspaper articles from an online news website that is not an online version of a print newspaper, follow the format for a webpage reference list entry.

Online Video/Webcast

Walden University. (2013).  An overview of learning  [Video]. Walden University Canvas.  https://waldenu.instructure.com  

Use this format for online videos such as Walden videos in classrooms. Most of our classroom videos are produced by Walden University, which will be listed as the author in your reference and citation. Note: Some examples of audiovisual materials in the APA manual show the word “Producer” in parentheses after the producer/author area. In consultation with the editors of the APA manual, we have determined that parenthetical is not necessary for the videos in our courses. The manual itself is unclear on the matter, however, so either approach should be accepted. Note that the speaker in the video does not appear in the reference list entry, but you may want to mention that person in your text. For instance, if you are viewing a video where Tobias Ball is the speaker, you might write the following: Tobias Ball stated that APA guidelines ensure a consistent presentation of information in student papers (Walden University, 2013). For more information on citing the speaker in a video, see our page on Common Citation Errors .

Taylor, R. [taylorphd07]. (2014, February 27). Scales of measurement [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDsMUlexaMY

Walden University Academic Skills Center. (2020, April 15). One-way ANCOVA: Introduction [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/_XnNDQ5CNW8

For videos from streaming sites, use the person or organization who uploaded the video in the author space to ensure retrievability, whether or not that person is the speaker in the video. A username can be provided in square brackets. As a change from APA 6 to APA 7, include the publisher after the title, and do not use "Retrieved from" before the URL. See APA 7, Section 10.12 for more information and examples.

See also reference list entry formats for TED Talks .

Technical and Research Reports

Edwards, C. (2015). Lighting levels for isolated intersections: Leading to safety improvements (Report No. MnDOT 2015-05). Center for Transportation Studies. http://www.cts.umn.edu/Publications/ResearchReports/reportdetail.html?id=2402

Technical and research reports by governmental agencies and other research institutions usually follow a different publication process than scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. However, they present original research and are often useful for research papers. Sometimes, researchers refer to these types of reports as gray literature , and white papers are a type of this literature. See APA 7, Section 10.4 for more information.

Reference list entires for TED Talks follow the usual guidelines for multimedia content found online. There are two common places to find TED talks online, with slightly different reference list entry formats for each.

TED Talk on the TED website

If you find the TED Talk on the TED website, follow the format for an online video on an organizational website:

Owusu-Kesse, K. (2020, June). 5 needs that any COVID-19 response should meet [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/kwame_owusu_kesse_5_needs_that_any_covid_19_response_should_meet

The speaker is the author in the reference list entry if the video is posted on the TED website. For citations, use the speaker's surname.

TED Talk on YouTube

If you find the TED Talk on YouTube or another streaming video website, follow the usual format for streaming video sites:

TED. (2021, February 5). The shadow pandemic of domestic violence during COVID-19 | Kemi DaSilvalbru [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGdID_ICFII

TED is the author in the reference list entry if the video is posted on YouTube since it is the channel on which the video is posted. For citations, use TED as the author.

Walden University Course Catalog

To include the Walden course catalog in your reference list, use this format:

Walden University. (2020). 2019-2020 Walden University catalog . https://catalog.waldenu.edu/index.php

If you cite from a specific portion of the catalog in your paper, indicate the appropriate section and paragraph number in your text:

...which reflects the commitment to social change expressed in Walden University's mission statement (Walden University, 2020, Vision, Mission, and Goals section, para. 2).

And in the reference list:

Walden University. (2020). Vision, mission, and goals. In 2019-2020 Walden University catalog. https://catalog.waldenu.edu/content.php?catoid=172&navoid=59420&hl=vision&returnto=search

Vartan, S. (2018, January 30). Why vacations matter for your health . CNN. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/why-vacations-matter/index.html

For webpages on the open web, include the author, date, webpage title, organization/site name, and URL. (There is a slight variation for online versions of print newspapers or magazines. For those sources, follow the models in the previous sections of this page.)

American Federation of Teachers. (n.d.). Community schools . http://www.aft.org/issues/schoolreform/commschools/index.cfm

If there is no specified author, then use the organization’s name as the author. In such a case, there is no need to repeat the organization's name after the title.

In APA 7, active hyperlinks for DOIs and URLs should be used for documents meant for screen reading. Present these hyperlinks in blue and underlined text (the default formatting in Microsoft Word), although plain black text is also acceptable. Be consistent in your formatting choice for DOIs and URLs throughout your reference list.

Related Resources

Knowledge Check: Common Reference List Examples

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Home » References in Research – Types, Examples and Writing Guide

References in Research – Types, Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

References in Research

Definition:

References in research are a list of sources that a researcher has consulted or cited while conducting their study. They are an essential component of any academic work, including research papers, theses, dissertations, and other scholarly publications.

Types of References

There are several types of references used in research, and the type of reference depends on the source of information being cited. The most common types of references include:

References to books typically include the author’s name, title of the book, publisher, publication date, and place of publication.

Example: Smith, J. (2018). The Art of Writing. Penguin Books.

Journal Articles

References to journal articles usually include the author’s name, title of the article, name of the journal, volume and issue number, page numbers, and publication date.

Example: Johnson, T. (2021). The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health. Journal of Psychology, 32(4), 87-94.

Web sources

References to web sources should include the author or organization responsible for the content, the title of the page, the URL, and the date accessed.

Example: World Health Organization. (2020). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) advice for the public. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

Conference Proceedings

References to conference proceedings should include the author’s name, title of the paper, name of the conference, location of the conference, date of the conference, and page numbers.

Example: Chen, S., & Li, J. (2019). The Future of AI in Education. Proceedings of the International Conference on Educational Technology, Beijing, China, July 15-17, pp. 67-78.

References to reports typically include the author or organization responsible for the report, title of the report, publication date, and publisher.

Example: United Nations. (2020). The Sustainable Development Goals Report. United Nations.

Formats of References

Some common Formates of References with their examples are as follows:

APA (American Psychological Association) Style

The APA (American Psychological Association) Style has specific guidelines for formatting references used in academic papers, articles, and books. Here are the different reference formats in APA style with examples:

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of book. Publisher.

Example : Smith, J. K. (2005). The psychology of social interaction. Wiley-Blackwell.

Journal Article

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number), page numbers.

Example : Brown, L. M., Keating, J. G., & Jones, S. M. (2012). The role of social support in coping with stress among African American adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 22(1), 218-233.

Author, A. A. (Year of publication or last update). Title of page. Website name. URL.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, December 11). COVID-19: How to protect yourself and others. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html

Magazine article

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day of publication). Title of article. Title of Magazine, volume number(issue number), page numbers.

Example : Smith, M. (2019, March 11). The power of positive thinking. Psychology Today, 52(3), 60-65.

Newspaper article:

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day of publication). Title of article. Title of Newspaper, page numbers.

Example: Johnson, B. (2021, February 15). New study shows benefits of exercise on mental health. The New York Times, A8.

Edited book

Editor, E. E. (Ed.). (Year of publication). Title of book. Publisher.

Example : Thompson, J. P. (Ed.). (2014). Social work in the 21st century. Sage Publications.

Chapter in an edited book:

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of book (pp. page numbers). Publisher.

Example : Johnson, K. S. (2018). The future of social work: Challenges and opportunities. In J. P. Thompson (Ed.), Social work in the 21st century (pp. 105-118). Sage Publications.

MLA (Modern Language Association) Style

The MLA (Modern Language Association) Style is a widely used style for writing academic papers and essays in the humanities. Here are the different reference formats in MLA style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication year.

Example : Smith, John. The Psychology of Social Interaction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.

Journal article

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal, volume number, issue number, Publication year, page numbers.

Example : Brown, Laura M., et al. “The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress among African American Adolescents.” Journal of Research on Adolescence, vol. 22, no. 1, 2012, pp. 218-233.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Webpage.” Website Name, Publication date, URL.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself and Others.” CDC, 11 Dec. 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Magazine, Publication date, page numbers.

Example : Smith, Mary. “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Psychology Today, Mar. 2019, pp. 60-65.

Newspaper article

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Newspaper, Publication date, page numbers.

Example : Johnson, Bob. “New Study Shows Benefits of Exercise on Mental Health.” The New York Times, 15 Feb. 2021, p. A8.

Editor’s Last name, First name, editor. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication year.

Example : Thompson, John P., editor. Social Work in the 21st Century. Sage Publications, 2014.

Chapter in an edited book

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Chapter.” Title of Book, edited by Editor’s First Name Last name, Publisher, Publication year, page numbers.

Example : Johnson, Karen S. “The Future of Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities.” Social Work in the 21st Century, edited by John P. Thompson, Sage Publications, 2014, pp. 105-118.

Chicago Manual of Style

The Chicago Manual of Style is a widely used style for writing academic papers, dissertations, and books in the humanities and social sciences. Here are the different reference formats in Chicago style:

Example : Smith, John K. The Psychology of Social Interaction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal volume number, no. issue number (Publication year): page numbers.

Example : Brown, Laura M., John G. Keating, and Sarah M. Jones. “The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress among African American Adolescents.” Journal of Research on Adolescence 22, no. 1 (2012): 218-233.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Webpage.” Website Name. Publication date. URL.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself and Others.” CDC. December 11, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Magazine, Publication date.

Example : Smith, Mary. “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Psychology Today, March 2019.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Newspaper, Publication date.

Example : Johnson, Bob. “New Study Shows Benefits of Exercise on Mental Health.” The New York Times, February 15, 2021.

Example : Thompson, John P., ed. Social Work in the 21st Century. Sage Publications, 2014.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Chapter.” In Title of Book, edited by Editor’s First Name Last Name, page numbers. Publisher, Publication year.

Example : Johnson, Karen S. “The Future of Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities.” In Social Work in the 21st Century, edited by John P. Thompson, 105-118. Sage Publications, 2014.

Harvard Style

The Harvard Style, also known as the Author-Date System, is a widely used style for writing academic papers and essays in the social sciences. Here are the different reference formats in Harvard Style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher.

Example : Smith, John. 2005. The Psychology of Social Interaction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal volume number (issue number): page numbers.

Example: Brown, Laura M., John G. Keating, and Sarah M. Jones. 2012. “The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress among African American Adolescents.” Journal of Research on Adolescence 22 (1): 218-233.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. “Title of Webpage.” Website Name. URL. Accessed date.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2020. “COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself and Others.” CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html. Accessed April 1, 2023.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. “Title of Article.” Title of Magazine, month and date of publication.

Example : Smith, Mary. 2019. “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Psychology Today, March 2019.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. “Title of Article.” Title of Newspaper, month and date of publication.

Example : Johnson, Bob. 2021. “New Study Shows Benefits of Exercise on Mental Health.” The New York Times, February 15, 2021.

Editor’s Last name, First name, ed. Year of publication. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher.

Example : Thompson, John P., ed. 2014. Social Work in the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. “Title of Chapter.” In Title of Book, edited by Editor’s First Name Last Name, page numbers. Place of publication: Publisher.

Example : Johnson, Karen S. 2014. “The Future of Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities.” In Social Work in the 21st Century, edited by John P. Thompson, 105-118. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Vancouver Style

The Vancouver Style, also known as the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, is a widely used style for writing academic papers in the biomedical sciences. Here are the different reference formats in Vancouver Style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Book. Edition number. Place of publication: Publisher; Year of publication.

Example : Smith, John K. The Psychology of Social Interaction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell; 2005.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Article. Abbreviated Journal Title. Year of publication; volume number(issue number):page numbers.

Example : Brown LM, Keating JG, Jones SM. The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress among African American Adolescents. J Res Adolesc. 2012;22(1):218-233.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Webpage. Website Name [Internet]. Publication date. [cited date]. Available from: URL.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself and Others [Internet]. 2020 Dec 11. [cited 2023 Apr 1]. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Article. Title of Magazine. Year of publication; month and day of publication:page numbers.

Example : Smith M. The Power of Positive Thinking. Psychology Today. 2019 Mar 1:32-35.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Article. Title of Newspaper. Year of publication; month and day of publication:page numbers.

Example : Johnson B. New Study Shows Benefits of Exercise on Mental Health. The New York Times. 2021 Feb 15:A4.

Editor’s Last name, First name, editor. Title of Book. Edition number. Place of publication: Publisher; Year of publication.

Example: Thompson JP, editor. Social Work in the 21st Century. 1st ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications; 2014.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Chapter. In: Editor’s Last name, First name, editor. Title of Book. Edition number. Place of publication: Publisher; Year of publication. page numbers.

Example : Johnson KS. The Future of Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities. In: Thompson JP, editor. Social Work in the 21st Century. 1st ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications; 2014. p. 105-118.

Turabian Style

Turabian style is a variation of the Chicago style used in academic writing, particularly in the fields of history and humanities. Here are the different reference formats in Turabian style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example : Smith, John K. The Psychology of Social Interaction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal volume number, no. issue number (Year of publication): page numbers.

Example : Brown, LM, Keating, JG, Jones, SM. “The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress among African American Adolescents.” J Res Adolesc 22, no. 1 (2012): 218-233.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Webpage.” Name of Website. Publication date. Accessed date. URL.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself and Others.” CDC. December 11, 2020. Accessed April 1, 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Magazine, Month Day, Year of publication, page numbers.

Example : Smith, M. “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Psychology Today, March 1, 2019, 32-35.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Newspaper, Month Day, Year of publication.

Example : Johnson, B. “New Study Shows Benefits of Exercise on Mental Health.” The New York Times, February 15, 2021.

Editor’s Last name, First name, ed. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example : Thompson, JP, ed. Social Work in the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2014.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Chapter.” In Title of Book, edited by Editor’s Last name, First name, page numbers. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example : Johnson, KS. “The Future of Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities.” In Social Work in the 21st Century, edited by Thompson, JP, 105-118. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2014.

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Style

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) style is commonly used in engineering, computer science, and other technical fields. Here are the different reference formats in IEEE style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Book Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example : Oppenheim, A. V., & Schafer, R. W. Discrete-Time Signal Processing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Abbreviated Journal Title, vol. number, no. issue number, pp. page numbers, Month year of publication.

Example: Shannon, C. E. “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.” Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 379-423, July 1948.

Conference paper

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Paper.” In Title of Conference Proceedings, Place of Conference, Date of Conference, pp. page numbers, Year of publication.

Example: Gupta, S., & Kumar, P. “An Improved System of Linear Discriminant Analysis for Face Recognition.” In Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on Computer Science and Network Technology, Harbin, China, Dec. 2011, pp. 144-147.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Webpage.” Name of Website. Date of publication or last update. Accessed date. URL.

Example : National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Apollo 11.” NASA. July 20, 1969. Accessed April 1, 2023. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11.html.

Technical report

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Report.” Name of Institution or Organization, Report number, Year of publication.

Example : Smith, J. R. “Development of a New Solar Panel Technology.” National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL/TP-6A20-51645, 2011.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Patent.” Patent number, Issue date.

Example : Suzuki, H. “Method of Producing Carbon Nanotubes.” US Patent 7,151,019, December 19, 2006.

Standard Title. Standard number, Publication date.

Example : IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic. IEEE Std 754-2008, August 29, 2008

ACS (American Chemical Society) Style

ACS (American Chemical Society) style is commonly used in chemistry and related fields. Here are the different reference formats in ACS style:

Author’s Last name, First name; Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Article. Abbreviated Journal Title Year, Volume, Page Numbers.

Example : Wang, Y.; Zhao, X.; Cui, Y.; Ma, Y. Facile Preparation of Fe3O4/graphene Composites Using a Hydrothermal Method for High-Performance Lithium Ion Batteries. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2012, 4, 2715-2721.

Author’s Last name, First name. Book Title; Publisher: Place of Publication, Year of Publication.

Example : Carey, F. A. Organic Chemistry; McGraw-Hill: New York, 2008.

Author’s Last name, First name. Chapter Title. In Book Title; Editor’s Last name, First name, Ed.; Publisher: Place of Publication, Year of Publication; Volume number, Chapter number, Page Numbers.

Example : Grossman, R. B. Analytical Chemistry of Aerosols. In Aerosol Measurement: Principles, Techniques, and Applications; Baron, P. A.; Willeke, K., Eds.; Wiley-Interscience: New York, 2001; Chapter 10, pp 395-424.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Webpage. Website Name, URL (accessed date).

Example : National Institute of Standards and Technology. Atomic Spectra Database. https://www.nist.gov/pml/atomic-spectra-database (accessed April 1, 2023).

Author’s Last name, First name. Patent Number. Patent Date.

Example : Liu, Y.; Huang, H.; Chen, H.; Zhang, W. US Patent 9,999,999, December 31, 2022.

Author’s Last name, First name; Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Article. In Title of Conference Proceedings, Publisher: Place of Publication, Year of Publication; Volume Number, Page Numbers.

Example : Jia, H.; Xu, S.; Wu, Y.; Wu, Z.; Tang, Y.; Huang, X. Fast Adsorption of Organic Pollutants by Graphene Oxide. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology, American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017; Volume 1, pp 223-228.

AMA (American Medical Association) Style

AMA (American Medical Association) style is commonly used in medical and scientific fields. Here are the different reference formats in AMA style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Article Title. Journal Abbreviation. Year; Volume(Issue):Page Numbers.

Example : Jones, R. A.; Smith, B. C. The Role of Vitamin D in Maintaining Bone Health. JAMA. 2019;321(17):1765-1773.

Author’s Last name, First name. Book Title. Edition number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Example : Guyton, A. C.; Hall, J. E. Textbook of Medical Physiology. 13th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders; 2015.

Author’s Last name, First name. Chapter Title. In: Editor’s Last name, First name, ed. Book Title. Edition number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year: Page Numbers.

Example: Rajakumar, K. Vitamin D and Bone Health. In: Holick, M. F., ed. Vitamin D: Physiology, Molecular Biology, and Clinical Applications. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Springer; 2010:211-222.

Author’s Last name, First name. Webpage Title. Website Name. URL. Published date. Updated date. Accessed date.

Example : National Cancer Institute. Breast Cancer Prevention (PDQ®)–Patient Version. National Cancer Institute. https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/patient/breast-prevention-pdq. Published October 11, 2022. Accessed April 1, 2023.

Author’s Last name, First name. Conference presentation title. In: Conference Title; Conference Date; Place of Conference.

Example : Smith, J. R. Vitamin D and Bone Health: A Meta-Analysis. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research; September 20-23, 2022; San Diego, CA.

Thesis or dissertation

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Thesis or Dissertation. Degree level [Doctoral dissertation or Master’s thesis]. University Name; Year.

Example : Wilson, S. A. The Effects of Vitamin D Supplementation on Bone Health in Postmenopausal Women [Doctoral dissertation]. University of California, Los Angeles; 2018.

ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) Style

The ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) style is commonly used in civil engineering fields. Here are the different reference formats in ASCE style:

Author’s Last name, First name. “Article Title.” Journal Title, volume number, issue number (year): page numbers. DOI or URL (if available).

Example : Smith, J. R. “Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Sustainable Drainage Systems in Urban Areas.” Journal of Environmental Engineering, vol. 146, no. 3 (2020): 04020010. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EE.1943-7870.0001668.

Example : McCuen, R. H. Hydrologic Analysis and Design. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education; 2013.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Chapter Title.” In: Editor’s Last name, First name, ed. Book Title. Edition number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year: page numbers.

Example : Maidment, D. R. “Floodplain Management in the United States.” In: Shroder, J. F., ed. Treatise on Geomorphology. San Diego, CA: Academic Press; 2013: 447-460.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Paper Title.” In: Conference Title; Conference Date; Location. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year: page numbers.

Example: Smith, J. R. “Sustainable Drainage Systems for Urban Areas.” In: Proceedings of the ASCE International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure; November 6-9, 2019; Los Angeles, CA. Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers; 2019: 156-163.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Report Title.” Report number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Example : U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “Hurricane Sandy Coastal Risk Reduction Program, New York and New Jersey.” Report No. P-15-001. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; 2015.

CSE (Council of Science Editors) Style

The CSE (Council of Science Editors) style is commonly used in the scientific and medical fields. Here are the different reference formats in CSE style:

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Article Title.” Journal Title. Year;Volume(Issue):Page numbers.

Example : Smith, J.R. “Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Sustainable Drainage Systems in Urban Areas.” Journal of Environmental Engineering. 2020;146(3):04020010.

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. Book Title. Edition number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Chapter Title.” In: Editor’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial., ed. Book Title. Edition number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year:Page numbers.

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Paper Title.” In: Conference Title; Conference Date; Location. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Example : Smith, J.R. “Sustainable Drainage Systems for Urban Areas.” In: Proceedings of the ASCE International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure; November 6-9, 2019; Los Angeles, CA. Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers; 2019.

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Report Title.” Report number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Bluebook Style

The Bluebook style is commonly used in the legal field for citing legal documents and sources. Here are the different reference formats in Bluebook style:

Case citation

Case name, volume source page (Court year).

Example : Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

Statute citation

Name of Act, volume source § section number (year).

Example : Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7401 (1963).

Regulation citation

Name of regulation, volume source § section number (year).

Example: Clean Air Act, 40 C.F.R. § 52.01 (2019).

Book citation

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. Book Title. Edition number (if applicable). Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Example: Smith, J.R. Legal Writing and Analysis. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Aspen Publishers; 2015.

Journal article citation

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Article Title.” Journal Title. Volume number (year): first page-last page.

Example: Garcia, C. “The Right to Counsel: An International Comparison.” International Journal of Legal Information. 43 (2015): 63-94.

Website citation

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Page Title.” Website Title. URL (accessed month day, year).

Example : United Nations. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ (accessed January 3, 2023).

Oxford Style

The Oxford style, also known as the Oxford referencing system or the documentary-note citation system, is commonly used in the humanities, including literature, history, and philosophy. Here are the different reference formats in Oxford style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Book Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

Example : Smith, John. The Art of Writing. New York: Penguin, 2020.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Article Title.” Journal Title volume, no. issue (year): page range.

Example: Garcia, Carlos. “The Role of Ethics in Philosophy.” Philosophy Today 67, no. 3 (2019): 53-68.

Chapter in an edited book citation

Author’s Last name, First name. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title, edited by Editor’s Name, page range. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

Example : Lee, Mary. “Feminism in the 21st Century.” In The Oxford Handbook of Feminism, edited by Jane Smith, 51-69. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Page Title.” Website Title. URL (accessed day month year).

Example : Jones, David. “The Importance of Learning Languages.” Oxford Language Center. https://www.oxfordlanguagecenter.com/importance-of-learning-languages/ (accessed 3 January 2023).

Dissertation or thesis citation

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Dissertation/Thesis.” PhD diss., University Name, Year of Publication.

Example : Brown, Susan. “The Art of Storytelling in American Literature.” PhD diss., University of Oxford, 2020.

Newspaper article citation

Author’s Last name, First name. “Article Title.” Newspaper Title, Month Day, Year.

Example : Robinson, Andrew. “New Developments in Climate Change Research.” The Guardian, September 15, 2022.

AAA (American Anthropological Association) Style

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) style is commonly used in anthropology research papers and journals. Here are the different reference formats in AAA style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. Book Title. Place of Publication: Publisher.

Example : Smith, John. 2019. The Anthropology of Food. New York: Routledge.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Article Title.” Journal Title volume, no. issue: page range.

Example : Garcia, Carlos. 2021. “The Role of Ethics in Anthropology.” American Anthropologist 123, no. 2: 237-251.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title, edited by Editor’s Name, page range. Place of Publication: Publisher.

Example: Lee, Mary. 2018. “Feminism in Anthropology.” In The Oxford Handbook of Feminism, edited by Jane Smith, 51-69. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Page Title.” Website Title. URL (accessed day month year).

Example : Jones, David. 2020. “The Importance of Learning Languages.” Oxford Language Center. https://www.oxfordlanguagecenter.com/importance-of-learning-languages/ (accessed January 3, 2023).

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Title of Dissertation/Thesis.” PhD diss., University Name.

Example : Brown, Susan. 2022. “The Art of Storytelling in Anthropology.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Article Title.” Newspaper Title, Month Day.

Example : Robinson, Andrew. 2021. “New Developments in Anthropology Research.” The Guardian, September 15.

AIP (American Institute of Physics) Style

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) style is commonly used in physics research papers and journals. Here are the different reference formats in AIP style:

Example : Johnson, S. D. 2021. “Quantum Computing and Information.” Journal of Applied Physics 129, no. 4: 043102.

Example : Feynman, Richard. 2018. The Feynman Lectures on Physics. New York: Basic Books.

Example : Jones, David. 2020. “The Future of Quantum Computing.” In The Handbook of Physics, edited by John Smith, 125-136. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Conference proceedings citation

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Title of Paper.” Proceedings of Conference Name, date and location: page range. Place of Publication: Publisher.

Example : Chen, Wei. 2019. “The Applications of Nanotechnology in Solar Cells.” Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Nanotechnology, July 15-17, Tokyo, Japan: 224-229. New York: AIP Publishing.

Example : American Institute of Physics. 2022. “About AIP Publishing.” AIP Publishing. https://publishing.aip.org/about-aip-publishing/ (accessed January 3, 2023).

Patent citation

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. Patent Number.

Example : Smith, John. 2018. US Patent 9,873,644.

References Writing Guide

Here are some general guidelines for writing references:

• Follow the citation style guidelines: Different disciplines and journals may require different citation styles (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago). It is important to follow the specific guidelines for the citation style required.
• Include all necessary information : Each citation should include enough information for readers to locate the source. For example, a journal article citation should include the author(s), title of the article, journal title, volume number, issue number, page numbers, and publication year.
• Use proper formatting: Citation styles typically have specific formatting requirements for different types of sources. Make sure to follow the proper formatting for each citation.
• Order citations alphabetically: If listing multiple sources, they should be listed alphabetically by the author’s last name.
• Be consistent: Use the same citation style throughout the entire paper or project.
• Check for accuracy: Double-check all citations to ensure accuracy, including correct spelling of author names and publication information.
• Use reputable sources: When selecting sources to cite, choose reputable and authoritative sources. Avoid sources that are biased or unreliable.
• Include all sources: Make sure to include all sources used in the research, including those that were not directly quoted but still informed the work.
• Use online tools : There are online tools available (e.g., citation generators) that can help with formatting and organizing references.

Purpose of References in Research

References in research serve several purposes:

• To give credit to the original authors or sources of information used in the research. It is important to acknowledge the work of others and avoid plagiarism.
• To provide evidence for the claims made in the research. References can support the arguments, hypotheses, or conclusions presented in the research by citing relevant studies, data, or theories.
• To allow readers to find and verify the sources used in the research. References provide the necessary information for readers to locate and access the sources cited in the research, which allows them to evaluate the quality and reliability of the information presented.
• To situate the research within the broader context of the field. References can show how the research builds on or contributes to the existing body of knowledge, and can help readers to identify gaps in the literature that the research seeks to address.

Importance of References in Research

References play an important role in research for several reasons:

• Credibility : By citing authoritative sources, references lend credibility to the research and its claims. They provide evidence that the research is based on a sound foundation of knowledge and has been carefully researched.
• Avoidance of Plagiarism : References help researchers avoid plagiarism by giving credit to the original authors or sources of information. This is important for ethical reasons and also to avoid legal repercussions.
• Reproducibility : References allow others to reproduce the research by providing detailed information on the sources used. This is important for verification of the research and for others to build on the work.
• Context : References provide context for the research by situating it within the broader body of knowledge in the field. They help researchers to understand where their work fits in and how it builds on or contributes to existing knowledge.
• Evaluation : References provide a means for others to evaluate the research by allowing them to assess the quality and reliability of the sources used.

Advantages of References in Research

There are several advantages of including references in research:

• Acknowledgment of Sources: Including references gives credit to the authors or sources of information used in the research. This is important to acknowledge the original work and avoid plagiarism.
• Evidence and Support : References can provide evidence to support the arguments, hypotheses, or conclusions presented in the research. This can add credibility and strength to the research.
• Reproducibility : References provide the necessary information for others to reproduce the research. This is important for the verification of the research and for others to build on the work.
• Context : References can help to situate the research within the broader body of knowledge in the field. This helps researchers to understand where their work fits in and how it builds on or contributes to existing knowledge.
• Evaluation : Including references allows others to evaluate the research by providing a means to assess the quality and reliability of the sources used.
• Ongoing Conversation: References allow researchers to engage in ongoing conversations and debates within their fields. They can show how the research builds on or contributes to the existing body of knowledge.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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How to Write References and Cite Sources in a Research Paper

Table of contents

• 1.1 Academic Integrity
• 1.2 Avoiding Plagiarism
• 1.3 Building Credibility
• 1.4 Facilitating Further Research
• 2.1 APA (American Psychological Association)
• 2.2 MLA (Modern Language Association)
• 2.3 Chicago Style
• 2.4 IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
• 3.1 Author(s)
• 3.2 Title of the Source
• 3.3 Publication Date
• 3.4 Publisher
• 3.5 Page Numbers
• 3.6 DOI (Digital Object Identifier) or URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
• 4.1.3 Chicago
• 4.2.1 Citing Multiple Authors
• 4.2.4 Chicago
• 4.3 Page Numbers in In-Text Citations
• 5.1 Formatting and Organizing Your References
• 5.2 Alphabetizing Your References
• 5.3.2 Journal
• 5.3.3 Chapter
• 5.3.4 Conference Paper/Presentation
• 5.3.5 Online Sources
• 6.1 Verify Your Source
• 6.2 Follow the One Style Guide
• 6.3 Verify DOI and URLs
• 6.4 Online Citation Generators
• 6.5 Use University Libraries and Writing Centers
• 7 Leave No Stone Unturned!

Citation is necessary while writing your school essay, a publication, or a Master’s thesis. We all want our efforts to be acknowledged, right? The lack of references and citations can make the source think you are trying to steal their work. Hence, the question is how to go about making references.

Do you want to learn how to cite in a research paper? Then this article is for you, as it contains the details of how to reference when writing a research paper. There is a standard way to do this in educational journals and organizational publications.

Hence, a researcher must understand how to reference their writings or journals. It is another thing to write a journal properly, but crediting the sources is more crucial.

Follow this guide to learn:

• The importance of referencing and citations for your academic works;
• How to cite in APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, and ASA styles;
• Essential guidelines to follow for a published work.

Why Referencing and Citation Matter

Another important question is: What is the need for referencing and citation? The major reason for citations in research paper format is to serve as directional cues for the employed knowledge. When you cite, readers can know that some portions of your content belong to you. Hence, it is easier to identify how recent the information is.

Citation for your paper comes with several advantages. They include:

Academic Integrity

The citation affirms the integrity of your academic writing. In this information age, there are several details, and it can be difficult to authenticate. When you reference, it helps readers understand the necessity of the discussed topic. Referencing certain authors can give more authority to your papers.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Plagiarism refers to the mindless lifting of details from another material without acknowledging the details. For the source, they could believe you are stealing from them. In most countries, copyright infringement is a punishable crime and can make you lose your hard work.

Building Credibility

Credibility is the goal of every academic scholar. There is no better way to gain relevance than by citing sources from other credible ones.

Facilitating Further Research

For other researchers like you, providing citations can serve as other sources for more information. It helps them to know other philosophies about the subject.

Choosing the Right Citation Style

Now that the advantages have been established, the new worry is the choice of the right style. There are several styles with their respective peculiarities. For example, the MLA writing style is common in liberal scientific paper citations. Let’s delve more into MLA formatting for research papers and other styles.

APA (American Psychological Association)

The commonest style used by many scholars is APA formatting , especially if there is no stated style. This approach employs the use of in-text citations to explain the source. It’s the simplest form of citation.

Here is an in-text referencing example:

“Exercise is a good way to recover from ailments.” APA, n.d. (American Psychological Association).

The reference style includes:

• The author’s name;
• The author’s name is in parenthesis to follow the referenced excerpt;
• The publication date.

MLA (Modern Language Association)

MLA-style formation is concise and known for its scientific referencing format. The peculiarity of the MLA citation is its source citation, episode title, and document layout. You have to:

• Include the parenthetical citation;
• Create some spaces away from the left margin;
• Include the author’s or source’s name.

Ensure you capitalize every word when including the names. You can employ professional MLA Citation Generators to make the compilation easier. It is perfect for the citation format of scientific papers.

Chicago Style

Chicago’s style is famous for two things:

• The in-text citation within the paper;
• The reference list is at its end.

It is an author-date approach. Hence, the in-text citation for a research paper has the author’s or source name and publication year.

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

This employs the use of numbers. It is chronological as it arranges the citation based on the order of appearance. A click on it takes the reader to the full reference at the end of the paper. To make it easier, you can employ IEEE Citation Maker for a well-curated task. This way, you won’t have to worry about the manual compilation of the IEEE citation style.

This is similar to the author-date approach by Chicago Style. You can:

• Create the quotation;
• Include the parentheses for the author’s name and publication date;
• Add the page number using a colon.

Components of a Citation

Do you want to know how to complete a citation for your professional research paper writing service and research paper? Learn about its components.

The author is also regarded as the source. It is the original writer of the material you are referencing. Sometimes, there may be multiple authors. Do not miss out on anyone while citing a research paper.

Title of the Source

The title of the source is often the name given to the material by the author.

Publication Date

As the name implies, this refers to the date the source was published. Frequently, most writers include it at the start of their material. State the exact month and year of publication, separated with a comma. See example:

“(2016, March 7).”

Including the publisher’s details is only necessary for the full reference. It should be at the end of the paper. It can facilitate further research.

Page Numbers

The page number is necessary, as it helps to easily refer to different sections of the paper.

DOI (Digital Object Identifier) or URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

A DOI is a link to a resource on the internet. The resource can be a book or its chapter. On the other hand, a URL is an address that indicates where the resource can be found. It helps to locate the resource. The use of URLs and DOIs directs readers to the digital identifier of the source.

In-Text Citations

An in-text citation for a research paper is the brief form of the bibliography that you include in the body of the content. It contains the author’s family name and year of publication. It provides enough details to help users know the source in their reference list. Each citation format for research papers is unique.

See citation examples below.

How to Cite Direct Quotations for Each Citation Style

The general rule in referencing is that in-text citations must have a corresponding entry in your reference list. Let’s see how!

There are two types of APA in-text citations:

Parenthetical:

The researchers concluded, “Climate change poses significant challenges for coastal communities” (Johnson & Lee, 2021, p. 78).

In their study on the effects of exercise on mental health, Smith and Johnson (2019) found that regular physical activity was associated with a significant decrease in symptoms of anxiety and depression. According to their research, engaging in exercise three times a week for at least 30 minutes had a positive impact on participants’ overall well-being.

APA in-text citation style employs the source’s name and publication year. A direct quotation will include the page number. Remember, you can generate a citation in a research paper using the APA style via a citation generator.

MLA is known as the scientific style of citation. The uniqueness of MLA Style formatting is the use of a direct quote (in quotes), the Author’s name and page number (in parentheses).

In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Atticus Finch imparts wisdom to his children, saying, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 30).

For Chicago, you are to include a parenthetical citation, the author’s name, the publication year, and the quote’s page number.

As Adams (2009) argues, “History is a vast early warning system” (53).

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) style typically uses numerical citations in square brackets for in-text citations. It doesn’t rely heavily on direct quotations in the same way as some other citation styles, like APA or MLA. Instead, IEEE generally prefers paraphrasing and citing the source, but direct quotations can be used when necessary. Here’s an example of a direct quotation in IEEE style:

In-Text Citation:

As stated by Smith, “In most cases, the impedance of the transmission line remains relatively constant throughout its length” [1].

Corresponding Reference Entry:

[1] A. Smith, “Transmission Line Impedance Analysis,” IEEE Transactions on Electrical Engineering, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 212-225, 2010.

ASA is different because it contains the author’s name, publication year, and even the page number.

According to Smith (2010), “Social institutions shape our behaviors and interactions in profound ways” (p. 45).

How to Cite Paraphrased Information

While writing a college paper, paraphrasing is important to achieve clarity, but it is ideal to cite the source of the paraphrased information. The proper way to cite paraphrased information is to include a parenthetical citation. The style of referencing for all citation styles doesn’t change, but they should be in parenthesis.

“Strength can be defined in terms of ability and acquired skills, according to (Jack et al. 2023).

Citing Multiple Authors

The technique is different when you are citing a source that has multiple authors. For the first-time citation, you should include the names of all the authors. The subsequent activities to generate a citation in APA should only include the first author’s surname and the proper use of ‘et al.’ However, you should include the surname and initials of all these authors in the full reference. Separate the authors with commas and ampersands before the final name.

Two Authors:

When a source has two authors, include both authors’ names in the in-text citation every time you reference the source. Use an ampersand (&) between the authors’ names, and include the year of publication in parentheses. For example:

(Smith & Johnson, 2020) found that…

Three to Five Authors:

When a source has three to five authors, list all authors in the first in-text citation. Use an ampersand (&) between the last two authors’ names. For subsequent citations of the same source, use only the first author’s name followed by “et al.” and the year. For example:

First citation: (Smith, Johnson, & Williams, 2018)…

Subsequent citations: (Smith et al., 2018)…

Six or More Authors:

When a source has six or more authors, you should use “et al.” in both the first and subsequent in-text citations, along with the year. For example:

(Smith et al., 2019) conducted a study on…

Group Authors:

When citing sources authored by a group, organization, or company, use the full name of the group or organization as the author in the in-text citation. If the abbreviation is well-known, you can use the abbreviation in subsequent citations. For example:

First citation: (American Psychological Association [APA], 2019)…

Subsequent citations: (APA, 2019)

When a source has two authors, include both authors’ names in the in-text citation, separated by the word “and.” For example:

(Smith and Johnson 45) found that…

Three or More Authors:

When a source has three or more authors, include only the first author’s name followed by “et al.” in the in-text citation. For example:

(Smith et al. 72) conducted a study on…

If a source has no identifiable author, use a shortened version of the title in the in-text citation. Enclose the title in double quotation marks or use italics if it’s a longer work (e.g., a book or film). For example:

(“Title of the Source” 28) argues that…

(American Psychological Association 62) states that…

Author-Date System:

In the Author-Date system, when a source has two authors, include both authors’ last names and the publication year in parentheses in the in-text citation, separated by an ampersand (&). For example:

(Smith & Johnson 2020) found that…

When a source has three or more authors, you can use “et al.” after the first author’s name in the in-text citation. For example:

(Smith et al. 2018) conducted a study on…

Notes and Bibliography System:

In the Notes and Bibliography system, when a source has two authors, include both authors’ full names in the note. For example:

John Smith and Jane Johnson, Title of the Work (Place of Publication: Publisher, Year), page number.

When a source has three or more authors, list the first author’s name followed by “et al.” in the note. For example:

John Smith et al., Title of the Work (Place of Publication: Publisher, Year), page number.

When a source has two authors, include both authors’ last names in the in-text citation, separated by the word “and.” For example:

(Smith and Johnson 2020) found that…

Three Authors:

When a source has three authors, include all three authors’ last names in the in-text citation, separated by commas. For example:

(Smith, Johnson, and Williams 2018) conducted a study on…

More than Three Authors:

When a source has more than three authors, you should use the first author’s last name followed by “et al.” in the in-text citation. For example:

(Smith et al. 2019) conducted a study on…

When a source has two authors, include both authors’ last names in the in-text citation, separated by “and.” For example:

[1] Smith and Johnson found that…

When a source has three or more authors, use the first author’s last name followed by “et al.” in the in-text citation. For example:

[2] Smith et al. conducted a study on…

Page Numbers in In-Text Citations

The use of page numbers in in-text citations is more peculiar to APA style. You can use paragraphs as indicated above if the source has no page, as seen in some e-books and websites.

Creating a Reference List or Bibliography

Creating a reference list is one of the most important tips for writing a research paper because it shows the general scheme of paper citation. This part of the content is a step-by-step process you can follow to create your reference list for your research paper.

Formatting and Organizing Your References

Formatting and organizing your references is the first step when you want to create your bibliography. You need to arrange all the full references to the in-text citation in the downward part of your paper. To avoid missing out on any, writing every full reference when you write the in-text citation is advisable.

Alphabetizing Your References

Alphabetizing your references ensures you create your bibliography in an orderly fashion for easy comprehension. Hence, you can do it numerically or alphabetically. The numerical order is dependent on the referencing system you are using, while the alphabetical order uses the author’s name to organize the reference.

Citations for Different Source Types

Different source types have their respective references, even for scientific papers. The commonest sources include books, journals, chapters, presentations, and online (to cite a website).

See how to cite an example for each source below:

Author, Initial. (Year). Book Title. City of publication, Country/State: Publisher.

“Social, M. (2023). The effect of the internet in this modern era . London, England: Ink.”

Author last name, First name. Book Title: Subtitle . Edition, Publisher, Year.

Donaldson, Bruce. Dutch: A Comprehensive Grammar . 3rd ed., Routledge, 2017..

Author last name, First name. Book Title: Subtitle . Edition. Place of publication: Publisher, Year. E-book format.

Donaldson, Bruce. Dutch: A Comprehensive Grammar . 3rd ed. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2017.

• N. Last Name, Title , Edition. City: Publisher, 2000.
• Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , 1st ed. New York: Random House, 1969

Quote (Name Date)

Referencing is vital in research (Smith 2020).

Author, Initial. (Year). Article Title. Journal Title. The volume of the Journal (in italics), issue number of journal in round brackets, page range of articles, URL, and first time.

Social, M. (2023). The effect of the internet in this modern era . Digital Technology, 26(8), 22-24. (Insert URL).

Author. Journal title Date, Page. DOI

Ahmed, Sara. “What is Whiteness.” Feminist Theory , vol. 8, no. 2, Aug. 2007, pp. 149–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700107078139.

Author’s Last Name, First Name. “Article Title.” Journal Name Volume, No. Issue (Month or Season Year): Page range. DOI or URL.

Pickard, Hanna. “What Is Personality Disorder?” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 18, no. 3 (September 2011): 181–84. https://doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2011.0040.

Author Initial(s) and Surname, “Article title,” Journal Title , volume number, issue number, page range, month, and year of publication.

• Chesum, “Innovations in Catalyzation,” J Adhes Sci Technol , Vol. 7, No. 1., pp. 11–24, July-September 2012.

Author Surname, Author Forename. Year Published. ‘Title’. Publication Title Volume Number (Issue Number): Pages Used. Retrieved October 10, 2013 (http://Website URL).

Sandelowski, Margarete. 1994. ‘Focus On Qualitative Methods. Notes On Transcription’. Research in Nursing \& Health 17(4):312.

Chapter Author’s Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year). Chapter or article title. Editor First Initial. Second Initial. Editor’s Last Name (Ed.). Book title: Subtitle (edition number, if not the first pages of the chapter). Location of publication: Publisher.

Social, M.O., (2023). Coarctation. In D.S. Moodie (Ed.). Management of heart disease: Indulthood (pp. 142-170). Minneapolis, Minnesota: Cardiotext Publishing.

Name. Book title: Subtitle. Editors. Location of publication: publisher.

Schwartz, Paula. “Redefining Resistance: Women in France.” Behind the Lines: Two World Wars , edited by Margaret R. Higonnet et al., Yale UP, 1987, pp. 141–53.

Author’s Last Name, First Name. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title: Subtitle , edited by Editor first name Last name, Page range. Place of publication: Publisher, Year.

Nussbaum, Martha C. “Legal Reasoning.” In The Cambridge Law , edited by John Tasioulas, 59–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Author(s), “Chapter title,” in Book Title, Editor(s), Ed(s). City, Country: Publisher, year, p(p). page(s).

• Saito, A. Jorio, and M. S. Dresselhaus, “Properties of nanographene,” in The Oxford Book of Technology, vol. 2, Materials , A. V. NarlikarEds. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2010, pp. 1–30.

Author’s Last Name, First Name. Year of publication. “Title of Chapter.” Pp. Numbers in Title of Book (italicized), edited by F.I. MI. Last. Location of publisher, state or province postal code or name of country (if a foreign publisher): Publisher’s Name.

Rubin, Avi. 2015. “The Slave: A Drama from the Last Century.” Pp. 87-103 in Society, Culture in Asia: The Modernities , edited by E. R. Toledano: Walter De Gruyter Incorporated.

Conference Paper/Presentation

Last name, initial (Year). Conference paper title. Editor initial, last name (Ed.), Proceedings Book Title . Place of Publication: Publisher.

Winstone, N. & Boud, D. (2017). Supporting students’ engagement: the adoption of practices in the U.K. and Australia. A nnual Conference . Newport, South Wales

Surname, First Name. “Paper Title.” Proceedings Title, Conference Location and Date , edited by Editor Name(s), Publisher, Date of Publication.

Lewis, Jack. “Literature: The Consequences of Loss.” Library Proceedings Conference, Amsterdam, 13–14 June , edited by W. Oldham, LCP Publications, 2015.

Author First Name Last Name, “Title of the Paper” (paper presentation, Conference, Location, Date of conference).

Allison Cloyd, “An Examination of College Students” (paper presentation, EasyBib Conference, New York, NY, July 30, 2014) .

Author initials. Last name, Book Title . City, Country: Publisher, Year.

• P. Hailman, Coding: Man-Made Signals . Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2008.

Author Surname, Author Forename. Year Published. ‘Title’. P. Pages Used in Publication Title . City: Publisher. Retrieved October 10, 2013 (http://Website URL).

Vargas, Jose. 2014. ‘The End Of Liberty’. Pp. 40-42 in The end . Buenos Aires: Elsevier.

Online Sources

Last Name, Initials. (Year, Month Day). Article title . Site Name. URL

The countdown: A prophecy takedown . (2020, October 19). BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54596667

Author’s Last Name, First Name. Title of Book . Edition, Publisher, Year of publication.

Smith, Thomas. The Citation Manual for Students: A Guide . 2nd ed., Wiley, 2020.

Author First and Last Name, Title of Book (Place of publication: publisher, year), page number(s).

Albert Einstein, The Meaning of Relativity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1923), 44–45.

Author initials. Last Name, Book Title . City (and state if in the U.S.), Country: Publisher, Year.

• P. Hailman, Redundancy: Man-Made Signals . Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2008.

Last Name, First M. Year. “Title of article.” Title of Journal volume (issue): pages.

DOI/Retrieved Month Day, Year (URL)

Granello, Paul F. 1999. “College Students’ Wellness Due to Social Support.” Journal of Counseling 2(2):110-120.

Doi: 10.1002/j.2161-1882.1999.tb00149.x.

Tips for Accuracy

The goal of citing your paper is because of the advantages stated above. As such, you should not negotiate the accuracy of your citation. Here are the tips you can follow for accurate referencing:

Verify Your Source

Confirm if your source is credible or not. It is easier to verify books, journal articles, and chapters. You should check multiple links to confirm their authenticity.

Follow the One Style Guide

Maintain a single referencing style throughout your paper. It is improper to employ multiple referencing styles. If not specified, you can consider the APA style.

Verify DOI and URLs

DOI and URLs can be tricky and sensitive. A simple error with the punctuation can make them invalid. Hence, verifying every DOI and URL with a click is advisable. Discrediting your citation format for a scientific research paper reference based on an invalid URL is not worth it.

Online Citation Generators

Thanks to the digital age, you don’t have to worry about manually compiling your reference or generating its in-text citation. You can employ online generators to do the rough work for you. In turn, you will have more time to focus on the major content of your research work.

Use University Libraries and Writing Centers

Libraries and writing centers have extensive collections of cited sources. Since books, publications, and journals are more credible sources, university libraries remain a valid source to increase the credibility of your paper.

Leave No Stone Unturned!

Referencing and citation are the best way to preserve the relevance of your academic paper. It gives it the appropriate credibility for future use. That means another writer can refer to your work over many years, even when the level of advancement may be unmatched. A well-referenced work is evergreen.

One must note that well-oriented research paper citations have a proper format. The options include APA, MLA (citation style for science), Chicago, IEEE, and ASA. If not stated, it is advisable to follow the APA formatting style, as it is the most common. However, stick with formatting while compiling cited sources for a research paper.

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A referencing generator accesses information from across the web, drawing the relevant information into a fully-formatted bibliography that clearly presents all of the sources that have contributed to your work.

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Why Do I Need To Reference?

Simply put, when another source contributes to your work, you have to give the original owner the appropriate credit. After all, you wouldn’t steal someone else’s possessions so why would you steal their ideas?

Regardless of whether you are referencing a website, an article or a podcast, any factual material or ideas you take from another source must be acknowledged in a citation unless it is common knowledge (e.g. Winston Churchill was English). Failing to credit all of your sources, even when you’ve paraphrased or completely reworded the information, is plagiarism. Plagiarising will result in disciplinary action, which can range from losing precious marks on your assignment to expulsion from your university.

What’s more, attributing your research infuses credibility and authority into your work, both by supporting your own ideas and by demonstrating the breadth of your research. For many students, crediting sources can be a confusing and tedious process, but it’s a surefire way to improve the quality of your work so it’s essential to get it right. Luckily for you, using Cite This For Me’s reference generator makes creating accurate references easier than ever, leaving more time for you to excel in your studies.

In summary, the citing process serves three main functions:

• To validate the statements and conclusions in your work by providing directions to other sound sources that support and verify them.
• To help your readers locate, read and check your sources, as well as establishing their contribution to your work.
• To give credit to the original author and hence avoid committing intellectual property theft (known as ‘plagiarism’ in academia).

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Crediting your source material doesn’t just prevent you from losing valuable marks for plagiarism, it also provides all of the information to help your reader find for themselves the book, article, or other item you are citing. The accessible interface of the reference generator makes it easy for you to identify the source you have used – simply enter its unique identifier into the citation machine search bar. If this information is not available you can search for the title or author instead, and then select from the search results that appear below the reference generator.

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What Will The Reference Generator Create For Me?

Cite This For Me’s reference generator will create your citation in two parts: an in-text citation and a full citation to be copied straight into your work.

The reference generator will auto-generate the correct formatting for your bibliography depending on your chosen style. For instance, if you select a parenthetical style the reference generator will generate an in-text citation in parentheses, along with a full citation to slot into your bibliography. Likewise, if the reference generator is set to a footnote style then it will create a fully-formatted citation for your reference list and bibliography, as well as a corresponding footnote to insert at the bottom of the page containing the relevant source.

Parenthetical style examples:

In-text example: A nation has been defined as an imagined community (Anderson, 2006).* Alternative format: Anderson (2006) defined a nation as an imagined community.

*The reference generator will create your references in the first style, but this should be edited if the author’s name already appears in the text.

Bibliography / Works Cited list example: Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities. London: Verso.

What Are Citation Styles?

A citation style is a set of rules that you, as an academic writer, must follow to ensure the quality and relevance of your work. There are thousands of styles that are used in different academic institutions around the world, but in the UK the most common are Harvard, APA and Oscola.

The style you need to use will depend on the preference of your lecturer, discipline or academic institution – so if you’re unsure which style you should be using, consult your department and follow their guidelines exactly, as this is what you’ll be evaluated on when it comes to marking. You can also find your university’s style by logging into your Cite This For Me account and setting your institution in ‘My Profile’.

Citing isn’t just there to guard against plagiarism – presenting your research in a clear and consistent way eases the reader’s comprehension. Each style has a different set of rules for formatting both the page and your references. Be sure to adhere to formatting rules such as font type, font size and line spacing to ensure that your work is easily legible. Furthermore, if your work is published as part of an anthology or collected works, each entry will need to be presented in the same style to maintain uniformity throughout. It is important to make sure that you don’t jump from one style to another, so follow the rules carefully to ensure your reference list and bibliography are both accurate and complete.

If you need a hand with your citations then why not try Cite This For Me’s reference generator? It’s the quickest and easiest way to cite any source, in any style. The reference generator above will create your citations in the Harvard referencing style as standard, but it can generate fully-formatted references in over 1,000 styles – including university variations of each style. So, whether your lecturer has asked you to adopt APA referencing , or your subject requires you to use OSCOLA referencing , we’re sure to have the style you need. To access all of them, simply go to Cite This For Me’s website to create your free Cite This For Me account and search for your specific style such as MLA or Vancouver .

How Do I Format A Reference List Or Bibliography?

Drawing on a wide range of sources greatly enhances the quality of your work, and reading above and beyond your recommended reading list – and then using these sources to support your own thesis – is an excellent way to impress your reader. A clearly presented reference list or bibliography demonstrates the lengths you have gone to in researching your chosen topic.

Typically, a reference list starts on a new page at the end of the main body of text and includes a complete list of the sources you have actually cited in your paper. This list should contain all the information needed for the reader to locate the original source of the information, quote or statistic that directly contributed to your work. On the other hand, a bibliography is a comprehensive list of all the material you may have consulted throughout your research and writing process. Both provide the necessary information for readers to retrieve and check the sources cited in your work.

Each style’s guidelines will define the terminology of ‘reference list’ and ‘bibliography’, as well as providing formatting guidelines for font, line spacing and page indentations. In addition, it will instruct you on how to order each list – this will usually be either alphabetical or chronological (meaning the order that these sources appear in your work). Before submitting your work, be sure to check that you have formatted your whole paper according to your style’s formatting guidelines.

Sounds complicated? Citing has never been so easy; Cite This For Me’s reference generator will automatically generate fully-formatted citations for your reference list or bibliography in your chosen style. Sign in to your Cite This For Me account to save and export your bibliography.

How Do References Actually Work?

Although the reference generator will create your bibliography for you in record time, it is still useful to understand how this system works behind the scenes. As well as saving you time with its referencing generator, Cite This For Me provides the learning resources to help you fully understand the citing process and the benefits of adopting great citing standards.

The referencing process:

• Find a book, journal, website or other source that will contribute to your work
• Save the quote, image, data or other information that you will use in your work
• Save the source information that enables you to find it again (i.e. URL, ISBN, DOI etc.)
• Format the source information into a citation
• Copy and paste the citation into the body of the text
• Repeat for each source that contributes to your work.
• Export or copy and paste the fully-formatted citation into your bibliography.

Manage all your references in one place

Create projects, add notes, cite directly from the browser and scan books’ barcodes with a mobile app.

Sign up to Cite This For Me – the ultimate reference management tool.

How To Do In-Text Citations in MLA Format: A Quick Guide for Students

An in-text citation is a reference to information originating from another source. In-text citations must be used when you summarize, quote, paraphrase or refer to another source within a written document, such as academic literature. 

In-text citations are essential in academic writing. Without them, how would readers verify the information is reliable and accurate? Trustworthy authors include their sources for verifiable information rather than opinions so readers know where the evidence for claims can be explored further.

The Modern Language Association manages MLA style standards with the purpose to “strengthen the study and teaching of language and literature” and standardize how information sources are credited in scholarly writing. Not only does the MLA recommend proper citation format, but it also suggests proper general formatting, including document spacing, margins and font size.

As you begin authoring scholarly works, you’ll find the need to credit sources. Use this quick guide to learn how to do in-text citations in MLA format.

What is MLA format?

How to do in-text citations in mla, how to do a works cited page in mla, common challenges and solutions, tips for effective in-text citations.

MLA citation style is a system for crediting sources in scholarly writing and has been widely used in classrooms, journals and the press since 1931. What began with a three-page style sheet for the MLA’s scholarly journal became a uniform writing style preferred by academics and the editorial media everywhere.

Since its inception, the in-text citation style has changed from a recommended combination of footnotes and in-text citations in MLA format. The 1951 style guide suggested : “If the reference is brief, insert it, within parentheses, in the text itself . . . ; if it is lengthy, put it in a [foot]note.” As technology and society changed, so did the MLA style. In 1995, the document added recommendations for citing CD-ROMs and online databases. In 2016, the MLA published one of the most modern versions of the MLA Handbook , wherein in-text citations in MLA style should now be written according to a template of core elements.

The modern-day components of an in-text citation in MLA format, as of the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook , include:

• Author’s name
• Page numbers (if applicable)

These short in-text citations serve as references to a Works Cited list, which should follow a written piece of work and list all sources used in detail.

Authors who correctly use in-text citations in MLA style will prove their credibility, integrity and responsibility to share accurate and reliable information and simultaneously protect themselves from stealing sources and ideas from other writers, also known as plagiarism. Plagiarism is a severe offense , and many institutions have strict rules against the practice .

Now that you understand the importance of citations let’s review how to use in-text citations in MLA style. When referring to another author’s work in your own written text, you must use parenthetical citations, including the source in parentheses within the sentence that refers to the work. 

If a source does not have page numbers, use another numbering system, such as chapters, sections, scenes or articles that are explicitly numbered. If there are no numbered divisions within the work, simply cite the author’s name.

The basic format for in-text citations in MLA writings is as follows:

• The pail of water was at the top of the hill, which Jack and Jill decided to climb (Mother Goose 1) .

If including a direct quote from a source, enclose the entire quote within quotation marks to avoid confusing the reader. The in-text citation should fall outside the quotation marks at the end of the sentence before the sentence’s period. Paraphrased information does not need quotation marks but does need proper in-text citation.

It should be noted that any information included in your in-text citations must refer to the source information on the Works Cited page listed at the end of your document.

If you’re wondering how to list the references on the Works Cited page, the format varies depending on the type, such as a book or a website.

How to cite a book in MLA

• Author last name, first name. Title. Publisher, year.

How to cite an article in MLA

• Author last name, first name. “Article title.” Publication, volume/issue, publication month. Year, page numbers. Database, reference URL.

How to cite a website in MLA

• Author last name, first name. “Title.” Publication, publication month. Year, web page URL.

While constructing your paper, you may encounter a few citation challenges, such as a source with multiple authors or no known author. Though this can be confusing, this is how to use in-text citations in MLA style for challenging situations.

How to cite multiple authors in MLA

To write an in-text citation in MLA format for a source with multiple authors , simply list each author’s last name before the page number. Sources with more than two authors should cite the first author, followed by “et al.” For example:

• 2 authors: (Hall and Oates 1)
• 3+ authors: (Hall et al. 1)

How to cite sources with no author in MLA

Sources with no author must match the first listed element within its Works Cited entry. For example:

• In-text citation: (Baa, Baa, Black Sheep 0:15)
• Works Cited entry: “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.” Spotify . https://open.spotify.com/track/1Zpe8ef70Wx20Bu2mLdXc1?si=7TlgCyj1SYmP6K-uy4isuQ

How to cite indirect or secondary sources in MLA

A secondary source is a publication that provides second-hand information from other researchers. You may use secondary sources in your research, though it’s best practice to search for the primary source that supplied the first-hand information, so cite it directly.

If you don’t have access to the original source, include the original author and the author of the secondary source , with the abbreviation “qtd. in” indicating where you accessed the secondary quote. “Qtd. in” stands for “quoted in.” For example:

• (qtd. in Baa, Baa, Black Sheep 0:15)

Using et al. in MLA citations

As described above, et al. is used instead of listing all names of three or more authors, editors or contributors within your citations. It can also cite collections of essays, stories or poems with three or more contributors. When using et al., you should always use the last name of the first writer listed on the source. For example:

• (Earth et al. “September” 0:15)
• Contributors: Earth, Wind and Fire

The most crucial part of in-text citations in MLA style is to keep a consistent and accurate format within the entire body of work. Always use the same punctuation within the in-text citations and the same formatting for sources of the same type. Ensure that double-checking citations is part of your overall proofreading process. All citations, like the written work, should be precise and error-free.

Various tools exist to help you collect and manage your sources and citations. Popular tools include Zotero , EndNote and RefWorks . These tools can create citations for you and keep track of your research documents so you can reference them again if needed. It’s wise to track your sources as they’re included in your writing rather than compiling and citing them when finished.

More resources for writing in MLA format

For the most up-to-date in-text citation information, refer to the MLA Handbook , which can be found online, in bookstores and libraries. The most recent edition of the MLA Handbook is the 9th edition, published in spring 2021.

The MLA also operates the MLA Handbook Plus , a subscription-based digital platform that offers all of the content included in the print edition, plus annual updates and valuable resources, and can be accessed anywhere, whether you’re traveling, at home or in the classroom.

The MLA Style Center offers free online sources on the official MLA style, including templates, questions and answers and advice.

Furman University offers trained consultants for students on campus to provide one-on-one or small-group assistance for writing projects at the Writing & Media Lab (WML). You can make an appointment with a WML Consultant or stop by the James B. Duke Library in the Center for Academic Success (room 002) for on-demand help (subject to scheduling).

The Writing & Media Lab can help with many tasks related to student writing and multimedia projects, including:

• Brainstorming a paper or project
• Outlining your ideas
• Reading through your writing
• Creating a presentation or poster
• Helping you practice your presentation
• Planning a video or podcast
• Revising, proofreading, or editing

Mastering the art of in-text citations in MLA format will ensure that you, as an academic author, will portray yourself as a serious, responsible and factual writer who uses accurate and reliable sources.

The perspectives and thoughts shared in the Furman Blog belong solely to the author and may not align with the official stance or policies of Furman University. All referenced sources were accurate as of the date of publication.

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This page summarises some databases which use a citation-network based approach to searching - papers are identified and recommended on the basis of their connection to other papers, not just on the basis of their content. This approach can be very effective in some circumstances, but is potentially a bit more difficult to interpret and does not allow for systematic, comprehensive or replicable search strategies, such as might be required for a systematic review.

UCL does not have a subscription to any of these, but you may find them useful as alternative tools for your research.

• Connected Papers

Connected Papers is a tool for generating a list of papers which are seen as particularly relevant to a single source paper. It can be useful for quickly generating a list of relevant reading to investigate.

The tool works by taking a specific paper, and identifying similar papers via its co-citation network – papers that are cited by other papers which cite it, or cite the same papers as it does. It selects a group of “most closely related” papers and displays these as a graph or a list. It also shows “prior” and “derived” papers which are based on conventional citation networks – the papers most commonly cited by, or citing, those in the list.

These papers are likely to be relevant, but it does not provide a comprehensive list, and there may be limits to the co-citation approach. It would be useful for quickly getting a broader reading list from a single paper, but it would not be useful for any kind of comprehensive or systematic review, as a large number of potentially relevant papers might be omitted - it will never display more than a certain number of the 'most related' papers, no matter how relevant the others might be.

Connected Papers is a commercial tool and UCL does not have a subscription, but an individual account is free for up to five analyses per month, or a single month's access to the full service can be purchased for a small fee.

• Research Rabbit

Research Rabbit takes a single paper or a group of papers (eg a reference list from EndNote or Zotero) and generates recommendations from that. It shows a graph which represents citations between the recommended papers and the source papers, identifying the most heavily connected ones. It also offers a timeline view, and can generate lists of papers by individual authors for analysis.

The exact algorithm used to generate these recommended papers are generated is not clear, but it seems likely to include co-citation analysis as well as other aspects such as keywording, textual similarity, or coauthorship.

As with ConnectedPapers, it could potentially be very useful for finding new relevant papers, especially since it can use a large range of papers as sources, but should not be assumed to be comprehensive. We would not recommend using it for systematic reviews but it could be useful for scoping a review, or getting a broad overview of a field.

The tool is free to use for individuals.

Litmaps is a tool to generate citation maps based on the other works citing a given source paper. This allows you to navigate to other papers and, in principle, allows identifying the most relevant and closely linked papers.

As with Connected Papers, these papers are likely to be relevant, but it does not provide a comprehensive list, and they may not be the most relevant papers that would be selected by an informed human reviewer. Some potentially relevant papers might be omitted, making it insufficient for a comprehensive or systematic review. However, for an initial overview, or for looking for papers that might have been missed by an initial search, it could be useful.

Litmaps is a commercial tool and UCL does not have a subscription, but an individual account is free with a limited level of searching, or a single month's access to the full service can be purchased at a student rate.

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More From Forbes

Apple’s iphone ai plans explained in new research paper.

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Updated April 13: article originally posted April 10.

It may be the latest buzzword on Android, but Apple’s iPhone is not seen as an AI-infused smartphone. That’s set to change, and we now know one way in which Tim Cook and his team plan to catch up.

Experiencing the iPhone 15 during a launch event (Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

The details come in a newly released research paper by researchers from Cornell University working with Apple. Titled " Ferret-UI: Grounded Mobile UI Understanding with Multimodal LLMs ,” it details a multimodal large language model that can be used to understand what is displayed on a screen, specifically the elements in a mobile user interface, such as the display of an iPhone.

Thanks to a large supply of training data, it is possible to pick out icons, find text, parse widgets, describe in text what is on screen, parse the interface elements, and interact with the display while being guided by open-ended instructions and prompts.

Ferret was released in October 2023 and designed to parse photos and images to recognise what was on show. This upgrade to the snappily titled Ferret-UI will offer several benefits to those using it with their iPhone and could easily fit into an improved AI-powered Siri.

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Being able to describe the screen, no matter the app, opens up a richer avenue for accessibility apps, removing the need to pre-program responses and actions. Those looking to perform complex tasks or find obscure options on their phone could ask Siri to open up a complex app and use an obscure function hidden away in the depths of the menu system.

Developers could use Ferret-UI as a testing tool, asking the MLMM to act as if it was a 14-year-old with little experience with social networks to perform tasks or simulate a 75-year-old user trying to connect to Facetime with their grandchildren.

The logo of the speech recognition software Siri (Photo Illustration by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek ... [+] via Getty Images)

Update: Saturday April 13: Along with the academic paper pointing towards an AI-upgrade for Siri, backend code discovered by Nicolás Álvarez points to new server-side tools for individual iPhones.

The features are labelled “Safari Browsing Assistant” and “Encrypted Visual Search.” Both of these tie into features described in the Ferret-UI research, although these discoveries do come with some caveats. This is server-side code, so it would be straightforward to change these features to use different code; they could tie to more prosaic code rather than utilising AI; or these could be placeholders that may or may not be used in future products.

It’s worth noting that Visual Search has been seen tucked away in the code for visionOS and the Apple Vision Pro headset, but that feature has yet to be launched.

While these are not strong signals of Apple’s path to AI on their own, they are part of a growing body of evidence on Apple's approach.

Google publicly started the rush for AI-first smartphones on October 4th, a little more than three weeks after the launch of the iPhone 15. Tim Cook and his team did not make any noticeable announcements or draw attention to the AI improvements tucked away in its photo processing or text auto-correction, giving Android a head-start on AI and allowing Google’s mobile platform to set expectations.

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference takes place in June, and it will be the first moment Apple can engage with the public to discuss its AI plans as it lays the foundations for the launch of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro in September.

Until then, we have the academic side of Apple’s AI approach to be going on with.

Now read why the iPhone’s approach to AI is disrupting the specs for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus...

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Title: leave no context behind: efficient infinite context transformers with infini-attention.

Abstract: This work introduces an efficient method to scale Transformer-based Large Language Models (LLMs) to infinitely long inputs with bounded memory and computation. A key component in our proposed approach is a new attention technique dubbed Infini-attention. The Infini-attention incorporates a compressive memory into the vanilla attention mechanism and builds in both masked local attention and long-term linear attention mechanisms in a single Transformer block. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on long-context language modeling benchmarks, 1M sequence length passkey context block retrieval and 500K length book summarization tasks with 1B and 8B LLMs. Our approach introduces minimal bounded memory parameters and enables fast streaming inference for LLMs.

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Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

In-Text Citations: The Basics

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Note:  This page reflects APA 6, which is now out of date. It will remain online until 2021, but will not be updated. The equivalent APA 7 page can be found here .

Reference citations in text are covered on pages 169-179 of the Publication Manual. What follows are some general guidelines for referring to the works of others in your essay.

Note:  On pages 65-66, the Publication Manual suggests that authors of research papers should use the past tense or present perfect tense for signal phrases that occur in the literature review and procedure descriptions (for example, Jones (1998) found or Jones (1998) has found ...). Contexts other than traditionally-structured research writing may permit the simple present tense (for example, Jones (1998)  finds ).

APA citation basics

When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, for example, (Jones, 1998), and a complete reference should appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

If you are referring to an idea from another work but NOT directly quoting the material, or making reference to an entire book, article or other work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication and not the page number in your in-text reference. All sources that are cited in the text must appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

In-text citation capitalization, quotes, and italics/underlining

• Always capitalize proper nouns, including author names and initials: D. Jones.

( Note: in your References list, only the first word of a title will be capitalized: Writing new media .)

• When capitalizing titles, capitalize both words in a hyphenated compound word: Natural-Born Cyborgs .
• Capitalize the first word after a dash or colon: "Defining Film Rhetoric: The Case of Hitchcock's Vertigo ."
• Italicize the titles of longer works such as books, edited collections, movies, television series, documentaries, or albums: The Closing of the American Mind ; The Wizard of Oz ; Friends .
• Put quotation marks around the titles of shorter works such as journal articles, articles from edited collections, television series episodes, and song titles: "Multimedia Narration: Constructing Possible Worlds;" "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry."

Short quotations

If you are directly quoting from a work, you will need to include the author, year of publication, and page number for the reference (preceded by "p."). Introduce the quotation with a signal phrase that includes the author's last name followed by the date of publication in parentheses.

According to Jones (1998), "Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (p. 199).

Jones (1998) found "students often had difficulty using APA style" (p. 199); what implications does this have for teachers?

If the author is not named in a signal phrase, place the author's last name, the year of publication, and the page number in parentheses after the quotation.

She stated, "Students often had difficulty using APA style" (Jones, 1998, p. 199), but she did not offer an explanation as to why.

Long quotations

Place direct quotations that are 40 words or longer in a free-standing block of typewritten lines and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, indented 1/2 inch from the left margin, i.e., in the same place you would begin a new paragraph. Type the entire quotation on the new margin, and indent the first line of any subsequent paragraph within the quotation 1/2 inch from the new margin. Maintain double-spacing throughout. The parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark.

Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time citing sources. This difficulty could be attributed to the fact that many students failed to purchase a style manual or to ask their teacher for help. (p. 199)

Summary or paraphrase

If you are paraphrasing an idea from another work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication in your in-text reference, but APA guidelines encourage you to also provide the page number (although it is not required).

According to Jones (1998), APA style is a difficult citation format for first-time learners.

APA style is a difficult citation format for first-time learners (Jones, 1998, p. 199).

This paper is in the following e-collection/theme issue:

Published on 16.4.2024 in Vol 26 (2024)

Adverse Event Signal Detection Using Patients’ Concerns in Pharmaceutical Care Records: Evaluation of Deep Learning Models

Authors of this article:

Original Paper

• Satoshi Nishioka 1 , PhD   ; 
• Satoshi Watabe 1 , BSc   ; 
• Yuki Yanagisawa 1 , PhD   ; 
• Kyoko Sayama 1 , MSc   ; 
• Hayato Kizaki 1 , MSc   ; 
• Shungo Imai 1 , PhD   ; 
• Mitsuhiro Someya 2 , BSc   ; 
• Ryoo Taniguchi 2 , PhD   ; 
• Shuntaro Yada 3 , PhD   ; 
• Eiji Aramaki 3 , PhD   ; 
• Satoko Hori 1 , PhD  

1 Division of Drug Informatics, Keio University Faculty of Pharmacy, Tokyo, Japan

2 Nakajima Pharmacy, Hokkaido, Japan

3 Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Nara, Japan

Corresponding Author:

Satoko Hori, PhD

Division of Drug Informatics

Keio University Faculty of Pharmacy

1-5-30 Shibakoen

Tokyo, 105-8512

Phone: 81 3 5400 2650

Email: [email protected]

Background: Early detection of adverse events and their management are crucial to improving anticancer treatment outcomes, and listening to patients’ subjective opinions (patients’ voices) can make a major contribution to improving safety management. Recent progress in deep learning technologies has enabled various new approaches for the evaluation of safety-related events based on patient-generated text data, but few studies have focused on the improvement of real-time safety monitoring for individual patients. In addition, no study has yet been performed to validate deep learning models for screening patients’ narratives for clinically important adverse event signals that require medical intervention. In our previous work, novel deep learning models have been developed to detect adverse event signals for hand-foot syndrome or adverse events limiting patients’ daily lives from the authored narratives of patients with cancer, aiming ultimately to use them as safety monitoring support tools for individual patients.

Objective: This study was designed to evaluate whether our deep learning models can screen clinically important adverse event signals that require intervention by health care professionals. The applicability of our deep learning models to data on patients’ concerns at pharmacies was also assessed.

Methods: Pharmaceutical care records at community pharmacies were used for the evaluation of our deep learning models. The records followed the SOAP format, consisting of subjective (S), objective (O), assessment (A), and plan (P) columns. Because of the unique combination of patients’ concerns in the S column and the professional records of the pharmacists, this was considered a suitable data for the present purpose. Our deep learning models were applied to the S records of patients with cancer, and the extracted adverse event signals were assessed in relation to medical actions and prescribed drugs.

Results: From 30,784 S records of 2479 patients with at least 1 prescription of anticancer drugs, our deep learning models extracted true adverse event signals with more than 80% accuracy for both hand-foot syndrome (n=152, 91%) and adverse events limiting patients’ daily lives (n=157, 80.1%). The deep learning models were also able to screen adverse event signals that require medical intervention by health care providers. The extracted adverse event signals could reflect the side effects of anticancer drugs used by the patients based on analysis of prescribed anticancer drugs. “Pain or numbness” (n=57, 36.3%), “fever” (n=46, 29.3%), and “nausea” (n=40, 25.5%) were common symptoms out of the true adverse event signals identified by the model for adverse events limiting patients’ daily lives.

Conclusions: Our deep learning models were able to screen clinically important adverse event signals that require intervention for symptoms. It was also confirmed that these deep learning models could be applied to patients’ subjective information recorded in pharmaceutical care records accumulated during pharmacists’ daily work.

Introduction

Increasing numbers of people are expected to develop cancers in our aging society [ 1 - 3 ]. Thus, there is increasing interest in how to detect and manage the side effects of anticancer therapies in order to improve treatment regimens and patients’ quality of life [ 4 - 8 ]. The primary approaches for side effect management are “early signal detection and early intervention” [ 9 - 11 ]. Thus, more efficient approaches for this purpose are needed.

It has been recognized that patients’ voices concerning adverse events represent an important source of information. Several studies have indicated that the number, severity, and time of occurrence of adverse events might be underevaluated by physicians [ 12 - 15 ]. Thus, patient-reported outcomes (PROs) have recently received more attention in the drug evaluation process, reflecting patients’ real voices. Various kinds of PRO measures have been developed and investigated in different disease populations [ 16 , 17 ]. Health care authorities have also encouraged the pharmaceutical industry to use PROs for drug evaluation [ 18 , 19 ], and it is becoming more common to take PRO assessment results into consideration for drug marketing approval [ 20 , 21 ]. Similar trends can be seen in the clinical management of individual patients. Thus, health care professionals have an interest in understanding how to appropriately gather patients’ concerns in order to improve safety management and clinical decisions [ 22 - 24 ].

The applications of deep learning for natural language processing have expanded dramatically in recent years [ 25 ]. Since the development of a high-performance deep learning model in 2018 [ 26 ], attempts to apply cutting-edge deep learning models to various kinds of patient-generated text data for the evaluation of safety events or the analysis of unscalable subjective information from patients have been accelerating [ 27 - 31 ]. Most studies have been conducted to use patients’ narrative data for pharmacovigilance [ 27 , 32 - 35 ], while few have been aimed at improvement of real-time safety monitoring for individual patients. In addition, there have been some studies on adverse event severity grading based on health care records [ 36 - 39 ], but none has yet aimed to extract clinically important adverse event signals that require medical intervention from patients’ narratives. It is important to know whether deep learning models could contribute to the detection of such important adverse event signals from concern texts generated by individual patients.

To address this question, we have developed deep learning models to detect adverse event signals from individual patients with cancer based on patients’ blog articles in online communities, following other types of natural language processing–related previous work [ 40 , 41 ]. One deep learning model focused on the specific symptom of hand-foot syndrome (HFS), which is one of the typical side effects of anticancer treatments [ 42 ], and another focused on a broad range of adverse events that impact patients’ activities of daily living [ 43 ]. We showed that our models can provide good performance scores in targeting adverse event signals. However, the evaluation relied on patients’ narratives from the patients’ blog data used for deep learning model training, so further evaluation is needed to ensure the validity and applicability of the models to other texts regarding patients’ concerns. In addition, the blog data source did not contain medical information, so it was not feasible to assess whether the models could contribute to the extraction of clinically important adverse event signals.

To address these challenges, we focused on pharmaceutical care records written by pharmacists at community pharmacies. The gold standard format for pharmaceutical care records in Japan is the SOAP (subjective, objective, assessment, plan)-based document that follows the “problem-oriented system” concept proposed by Weed [ 44 ] in 1968. Pharmacists track patients’ subjective concerns in the S column, provide objective information or observations in the O column, give their assessment from the pharmacist perspective in the A column, and suggest a plan for moving forward in the P column [ 45 , 46 ]. We considered that SOAP-based pharmaceutical care records could be a unique data source suitable for further evaluation of our deep learning models because they contain both patients’ concerns and professional health care records by pharmacists, including the medication prescription history with time stamps. Therefore, this study was designed to assess whether our deep learning models could extract clinically important adverse event signals that require intervention by medical professionals from these records. We also aimed to evaluate the characteristics of the models when applied to patients’ subjective information noted in the pharmaceutical care records, as there have been only a few studies on the application of deep learning models to patients’ concerns recorded during pharmacists’ daily work [ 47 - 49 ].

Here, we report the results of applying our deep learning models to patients’ concern text data in pharmaceutical care records, focusing on patients receiving anticancer treatment.

Data Source

The original data source was 2,276,494 pharmaceutical care records for 303,179 patients, created from April 2020 to December 2021 at community pharmacies belonging to the Nakajima Pharmacy Group in Japan [ 50 ]. To focus on patients with cancer, records of patients with at least 1 prescription for an anticancer drug were retrieved by sorting individual drug codes (YJ codes) used in Japan (YJ codes starting with 42 refer to anticancer drugs). Records in the S column (ie, S records) were collected from the patients with cancer as the text data of patients’ concerns for deep learning model analysis.

Deep Learning Models

The deep learning models used for this research were those that we constructed based on patients’ narratives in blog articles posted in an online community and that showed the best performance score in each task in our previous work (ie, a Bidirectional Encoder Representations From Transformers [BERT]–based model for HFS signal extraction [ 42 ] and a T5-based model for adverse event signal extraction [ 43 ]). BERT [ 26 ] and T5 [ 51 ] both belong to a type of deep learning model that has recently shown high performance in several studies [ 29 , 52 ]. Hereafter, we refer to the deep learning model for HFS signals as the HFS model, the model for any adverse event signals as All AE (ie, all or any adverse events) model, and the model for adverse event signals limited to patients’ activities of daily living as the AE-L (adverse events limiting patients’ daily lives) model. It was also confirmed that these deep learning models showed similar or higher performance scores for the HFS, All AE, or AE-L identification tasks using 1000 S records randomly extracted from the data source of this study compared to the values obtained in our previous work [ 42 , 43 ] (the performance scores of sentence-level tasks from our previous work are comparable, as the mean number of words in the sentences in the data source in our previous work was 32.7 [SD 33.9], which is close to that of the S records used in this study, 38.8 [SD 29.4]). The method and results of the performance-level check are described in detail in Multimedia Appendix 1 [ 42 , 43 ]. We applied the deep learning models to all text data in this study without any adjustment in setting parameters from those used in constructing them based on patient-authored texts in our previous work [ 42 , 43 ].

Evaluation of Extracted S Records by the Deep Learning Models

In this study, we focused on the evaluation of S records that our deep learning models extracted as HFS or AE-L positive. Each positive S record was assessed as if it was a true adverse event signal, a sort of adverse event symptom, whether or not an intervention was made by health care professionals. We also investigated the kind of anticancer treatment prescription in connection with each adverse event signal identified in S records.

To assess whether an extracted positive S record was a true adverse event signal, we used the same annotation guidelines as in our previous work [ 43 ]. In brief, each S record was treated as an “adverse event signal” if any untoward medical occurrence happened to the patient, regardless of the cause. For the AE-L model only, if a positive S record was confirmed as an adverse event signal, it was further categorized into 1 or more of the following adverse event symptoms: “fatigue,” “nausea,” “vomiting,” “diarrhea,” “constipation,” “appetite loss,” “pain or numbness,” “rash or itchy,” “hair loss,” “menstrual irregularity,” “fever,” “taste disorder,” “dizziness,” “sleep disorder,” “edema,” or “others.”

For the assessment of interventions by health care professionals and anticancer treatment prescriptions, information from the O, A, and P columns and drug prescription history in the data source were investigated for the extracted positive S records. The interventions by health care professionals were categorized in any of the following: “adding symptomatic treatment for the adverse event signal,” “dose reduction or discontinuation of causative anticancer treatment,” “consultation with physician,” “others,” or “no intervention (ie, just following up the adverse event signal).” The actions categorized in “others” were further evaluated individually. For this assessment, we also randomly extracted 200 S records and evaluated them in the same way for comparison with the results from the deep learning model. Prescription history of anticancer treatment was analyzed by primary category of mechanism of action (MoA) with subcategories if applicable (eg, target molecule for kinase inhibitors).

Applicability Check to Other Text Data Including Patients’ Concerns

To check the applicability of our deep learning models to data from a different source, interview transcripts from patients with cancer were also evaluated. The interview transcripts were created by the Database of Individual Patient Experiences-Japan (DIPEx-Japan) [ 53 ]. DIPEx-Japan divides the interview transcripts into sections for each topic, such as “onset of disease” and “treatment,” and posts the processed texts on its website. Processing is conducted by accredited researchers based on qualitative research methods established by the University of Oxford [ 54 ]. In this study, interview text data created from interviews with 52 patients with breast cancer conducted from January 2008 to October 2018 were used to assess whether our deep learning models can extract adverse event signals from this source. In total, 508 interview transcripts were included with the approval of DIPEx-Japan.

Ethical Considerations

This study was conducted with anonymized data following approval by the ethics committee of the Keio University Faculty of Pharmacy (210914-1 and 230217-1) and in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations and the Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent specific to this study was waived due to the retrospective observational design of the study with the approval of the ethics committee of the Keio University Faculty of Pharmacy. To respect the will of each individual stakeholder, however, we provided patients and pharmacists of the pharmacy group with an opportunity to refuse the sharing of their pharmaceutical care records by posting an overview of this study at each pharmacy store or on their web page regarding the analysis using pharmaceutical care records. Interview transcripts from DIPEx-Japan were provided through a data sharing arrangement for using narrative data for research and education. Consent for interview transcription and its sharing from DIPEx-Japan was obtained from the participants when the interviews were recorded.

From the original data source of 2,180,902 pharmaceutical care records for 291,150 patients, S records written by pharmacists for patients with a history of at least 1 prescription of an anticancer drug were extracted. This yielded 30,784 S records for 2479 patients with cancer ( Table 1 ). The mean and median number of words in the S records were 38.8 (SD 29.4) and 32 (IQR 20-50), respectively. We applied our deep learning models, HFS, All AE, and AE-L, to these 30,784 S records for the evaluation of the deep learning models for adverse event signal detection.

For interview transcripts created by DIPEx-Japan, the mean and median number of words were 428.9 (SD 160.9) and 416 (IQR 308-526), respectively, in the 508 transcripts for 52 patients with breast cancer.

a SOAP: subjective, objective, assessment, plan.

b S: subjective.

Application of the HFS Model

First, we applied the HFS model to the S records for patients with cancer. The BERT-based model was used for this research as it showed the best performance score in our previous work [ 42 ].

S Records Extracted as HFS Positive

The S records extracted as HFS positive by the HFS model ( Table 2 ) amounted to 167 (0.5%) records for 119 (4.8%) patients. A majority of the patients had 1 HFS-positive record in their S records (n=91, 76.5%), while 2 patients had as many as 6 (1.7%) HFS-positive records. When we examined whether the extracted S records were true adverse event signals or not, 152 records were confirmed to be adverse event signals, while the other 15 records were false-positives. All the false-positive S records were descriptions about the absence of symptoms or confirmation of improving condition (eg, “no diarrhea, mouth ulcers, or limb pain so far” or “the skin on the soles of my feet has calmed down a lot with this ointment”). Some examples of S records that were predicted as HFS positive by the model are shown in Table S1 in Multimedia Appendix 2 .

The same examination was conducted with interview transcripts from DIPEx-Japan. Only 1 (0.2%) transcript was extracted as HFS positive by the HFS model, and it was a true adverse event signal (100%). The actual transcript extracted as HFS positive is shown in Table S2 in Multimedia Appendix 2 .

a S: subjective.

b HFS: hand-foot syndrome.

c All false-positive S records were denial of symptoms or confirmation of improving condition.

Interventions by Health Care Professionals

The 167 S records extracted as HFS positive as well as 200 randomly selected records were checked for interventions by health care professionals ( Figure 1 ). The proportion showing any action by health care professionals was 64.1% for 167 HFS-positive S records compared to 13% for the 200 random S records. Among the actions taken for HFS positives, “adding symptomatic treatment” was the most common, accounting for around half (n=79, 47.3%), followed by “other” (n=18, 10.8%). Most “other” actions were educational guidance from pharmacists, such as instructions on moisturizing, nail care, or application of ointment and advice on daily living (eg, “avoid tight socks”).

Anticancer Drugs Prescribed

The types of anticancer drugs prescribed for HFS-positive patients are summarized based on the prescription histories in Table 3 . For the 152 adverse event signals identified by the HFS model in the previous section, the most common MoA class of anticancer drugs used for the patients was antimetabolite (n=62, 40.8%), specifically fluoropyrimidines (n=59, 38.8%). Kinase inhibitors were next (n=49, 32.2%), with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors and multikinase inhibitors as major subgroups (n=28, 18.4% and n=14, 9.2%, respectively). The third and fourth most common MoAs were aromatase inhibitors (n=24, 15.8%) and antiandrogen or estrogen drugs (n=7, 4.6% each) for hormone therapy.

a EGFR: epidermal growth factor receptor.

b VEGF: vascular endothelial growth factor.

c HER2: human epidermal growth factor receptor-2.

d CDK4/6: cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6.

Application of the All AE or AE-L model

The All AE and AE-L models were also applied to the same S records for patients with cancer. The T5-based model was used for this research as it gave the best performance score in our previous work [ 43 ].

S Records Extracted as All AE or AE-L positive

The numbers of S records extracted as positive were 7604 (24.7%) for 1797 patients and 196 (0.6%) for 142 patients for All AE and AE-L, respectively. In the case of All AE, patients tended to have multiple adverse event positives in their S records (n=1315, 73.2% of patients had at least 2 positives). In the case of AE-L, most patients had only 1 AE-L positive (n=104, 73.2%), and the largest number of AE-L positives for 1 patient was 4 (2.8%; Table 4 ).

We focused on AE-L evaluation due to its greater importance from a medical viewpoint and lower workload for manual assessment, considering the number of positive S records. Of the 197 AE-L–positive S records, it was confirmed that 157 (80.1%) records accurately extracted adverse event signals, while 39 (19.9%) records were false-positives that did not include any adverse event signals ( Table 4 ). The contents of the 39 false-positives were all descriptions about the absence of symptoms or confirmation of improving condition, showing a similar tendency to the HFS false-positives (eg, “The diarrhea has calmed down so far. Symptoms in hands and feet are currently fine” and “No symptoms for the following: upset in stomach, diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain, abdominal pain or stomach cramps, constipation”). Examples of S records that were predicted as AE-L positive are shown in Table S3 in Multimedia Appendix 2 .

The deep learning models were also applied to interview transcripts from DIPEx-Japan in the same manner. The deep learning models identified 84 (16.5%) and 18 (3.5%) transcripts as All AE or AE-L positive, respectively. Of the 84 All AE–positive transcripts, 73 (86.9%) were true adverse event signals. The false-positives of All AE (n=11, 13.1%) were categorized into any of the following 3 types: explanations about the disease or its prognosis, stories when their cancer was discovered, or emotional changes that did not include clear adverse event mentions. With regard to AE-L, all the 18 (100%) positives were true adverse event signals (Table S4 in Multimedia Appendix 2 ). Examples of actual transcripts extracted as All AE or AE-L positive are shown in Table S5 in Multimedia Appendix 2 .

b All AE: all (or any of) adverse event.

c AE-L: adverse events limiting patients’ daily lives.

d All false-positive S records were denial of symptoms or confirmation of improving condition.

Whether or not interventions were made by health care professionals was investigated for the 196 AE-L–positive S records. As in the HFS model evaluation, data from 200 randomly selected S records were used for comparison ( Figure 2 ). In total, 91 (46.4%) records in the 196 AE-L–positive records were accompanied by an intervention, while the corresponding figure in the 200 random records was 26 (13%) records. The most common action in response to adverse event signals identified by the AE-L model was “adding symptomatic treatment” (n=71, 36.2%), followed by “other” (n=11, 5.6%). “Other” included educational guidance from pharmacists, inquiries from pharmacists to physicians, or recommendations for patients to visit a doctor.

The types of anticancer drugs prescribed for patients with adverse event signals identified by the AE-L model were summarized based on the prescription histories ( Table 5 ). In connection with the 157 adverse event signals, the most common MoA of the prescribed anticancer drug was antimetabolite (n=62, 39.5%) and fluoropyrimidine (n=53, 33.8%), which accounted for the majority. Kinase inhibitor (n=31, 19.7%) was the next largest category with multikinase inhibitor (n=14, 8.9%) as the major subgroup. These were followed by antiandrogen (n=27, 17.2%), antiestrogen (n=10, 6.4%), and aromatase inhibitor (n=10, 6.4%) for hormone therapy.

b JAK: janus kinase.

c VEGF: vascular endothelial growth factor.

d BTK: bruton tyrosine kinase.

e FLT3: FMS-like tyrosine kinase-3.

f PARP: poly-ADP ribose polymerase.

g CDK4/6: cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6.

h CD20: cluster of differentiation 20.

Adverse Event Symptoms

For the 157 adverse event signals identified by the AE-L model, the symptoms were categorized according to the predefined guideline in our previous work [ 43 ]. “Pain or numbness” (n=57, 36.3%) accounted for the largest proportion followed by “fever” (n=46, 29.3%) and “nausea” (n=40, 25.5%; Table 6 ). Symptoms classified as “others” included chills, tinnitus, running tears, dry or peeling skin, and frequent urination. When comparing the proportion of the symptoms associated with or without interventions by health care professionals, a trend toward a greater proportion of interventions was observed in “fever,” “nausea,” “diarrhea,” “constipation,” “vomiting,” and “edema” ( Figure 3 , black boxes). On the other hand, a smaller proportion was observed in “pain or numbness,” “fatigue,” “appetite loss,” “rash or itchy,” “taste disorder,” and “dizziness” ( Figure 3 , gray boxes).

This study was designed to evaluate our deep learning models, previously constructed based on patient-authored texts posted in an online community, by applying them to pharmaceutical care records that contain both patients’ subjective concerns and medical information created by pharmacists. Based on the results, we discuss whether these deep learning models can extract clinically important adverse event signals that require medical intervention, and what characteristics they show when applied to data on patients’ concerns in pharmaceutical care records.

Performance for Adverse Event Signal Extraction

The first requirement for the deep learning models is to extract adverse event signals from patients’ narratives precisely. In this study, we evaluated the proportion of true adverse event signals in positive S records extracted by the HFS or AE-L model. True adverse event signals amounted to 152 (91%) and 157 (80.1%) for the HFS and AE-L models, respectively ( Tables 2 and 4 ). Given that the proportion of true adverse event signals in 200 randomly extracted S records without deep learning models was 54 (27%; categories other than “no adverse event” in Figures 1 and 2 ), the HFS and AE-L models were able to concentrate S records with adverse event mentions. Although 15 (9%) for the HFS model and 39 (19.9%) for the AE-L model were false-positives, it was confirmed all of the false-positive records described a lack of symptoms or confirmation of improving condition. We considered that such false-positives are due to the unique feature of pharmaceutical care records, where pharmacists might proactively interview patients about potential side effects of their medications. As the data set of blog articles we used to construct the deep learning models included few such cases (especially comments on lack of symptoms), our models seemed unable to exclude them correctly. Even though we confirmed that the proportion of true “adverse event” signals extracted from the S records by the HFS or AE-L model was more than 80%, the performance scores to extract true “HFS” or “AE-L” signals were not so high based on the performance check using 1000 randomly extracted S records ( F 1 -scores were 0.50 and 0.22 for true HFS and AE-L signals, respectively; Table S1 in Multimedia Appendix 1 ). It is considered that the performance to extract true HFS and AE-L signals was relatively low due to the short length of texts in the S records, providing less context to judge the impact on patients’ daily lives, especially for the AE-L model (the mean word number of the S records was 38.8 [SD 29.4; Table 1 ], similar to the sentence-level tasks in our previous work [ 42 , 43 ]). However, we consider a true adverse event signal proportion of more than 80% in this study represents a promising outcome, as this is the first attempt to apply our deep learning models to a different source of patients’ concern data, and the extracted positive cases would be worthy of evaluation by a medical professional, as the potential adverse events could be caused by drugs taken by the patients.

When the deep learning models were applied to DIPEx-Japan interview transcripts, including patients’ concerns, the proportion of true adverse event signals was also more than 80% (for All AE: n=73, 86.9% and for HFS and AE-L: n=18, 100%). The difference in the results between pharmaceutical care S records and DIPEx-Japan interview transcripts was the features of false-positives, descriptions about lack of symptoms or confirmation of improving condition in S records versus explanations about disease or its prognosis, stories about when their cancer was discovered, or emotional changes in interview transcripts. This is considered due to the difference in the nature of the data source; the pharmaceutical care records were generated in a real-time manner by pharmacists through their daily work, where adverse event signals are proactively monitored, while the interview transcripts were purely based on patients’ retrospective memories. Our deep learning models were able to extract true adverse event signals with an accuracy of more than 80% from both text data sources in spite of the difference in their nature. When looking at future implementation of the deep learning models in society (discussed in the Potential for Deep Learning Model Implementation in Society section), it may be desirable to further adjust deep learning models to reduce false-positives depending upon the features of the data source.

Identification of Important Adverse Events Requiring Medical Intervention

To assess whether the models could extract clinically important adverse event signals, we investigated interventions by health care professionals connected with the adverse event signals that are identified by our deep learning models. In the 200 randomly extracted S records, only 26 (13%) consisted of adverse event signals, leading to any intervention by health care professionals. On the other hand, the proportion of signals associated with interventions was increased to 107 (64.1%) and 91 (46.4%) in the S records extracted as positive by the HFS and AE-L models, respectively ( Figures 1 and 2 ). These results suggest that both deep learning models can screen clinically important adverse event signals that require intervention from health care professionals. The performance level in screening adverse event signals requiring medical intervention was higher in the HFS model than in the AE-L model (n=107, 64.1% vs n=91, 46.4%; Figures 1 and 2 ). Since the target events were specific and adverse event signals of HFS were narrowly defined, which is one of the typical side effects of some anticancer drugs, we consider that health care providers paid special attention to HFS-related signals and took action proactively. In both deep learning models, similar trends were observed in actions taken by health care professionals in response to extracted adverse event signals; common actions were attempts to manage adverse event symptoms by symptomatic treatment or other mild interventions, including educational guidance from pharmacists or recommendations for patients to visit a doctor. More direct interventions focused on the causative drugs (ie, “dose reduction or discontinuation of anticancer treatment”) amounted to less than 5%; 7 (4.2%) for the HFS model and 6 (3.1%) for the AE-L model ( Figures 1 and 2 ). Thus, it appears that our deep learning models can contribute to screening mild to moderate adverse event signals that require preventive actions such as symptomatic treatments or professional advice from health care providers, especially for patients with less sensitivity to adverse event signals or who have few opportunities to visit clinics and pharmacies.

Ability to Catch Real Side Effect Signals of Anticancer Drugs

Based on the drug prescription history associated with S records extracted as HFS or AE-L positive, the type and duration of anticancer drugs taken by patients experiencing the adverse event signals were investigated. For the HFS model, the most common MoA of anticancer drug was antimetabolite (fluoropyrimidine: n=59, 38.8%), followed by kinase inhibitors (n=49, 32.2%, of which EGFR inhibitors and multikinase inhibitors accounted for n=28, 18.4% and n=14, 9.2%, respectively) and aromatase inhibitors (n=24, 15.8%; Table 3 ). It is known that fluoropyrimidine and multikinase inhibitors are typical HFS-inducing drugs [ 55 - 58 ], suggesting that the HFS model accurately extracted HFS side effect signals derived from these drugs. Note that symptoms such as acneiform rash, xerosis, eczema, paronychia, changes in the nails, arthralgia, or stiffness of limb joints, which are common side effects of EGFR inhibitors or aromatase inhibitors [ 59 , 60 ], might be extracted as closely related expressions to those of HFS signals. When looking at the MoA of anticancer drugs for patients with adverse event signals identified by the AE-L model, antimetabolite (fluoropyrimidine) was the most common one (n=53, 33.8%), as in the case of those identified by the HFS model, followed by kinase inhibitors (n=31, 19.7%) and antiandrogens (n=27, 17.2%; Table 5 ). Since the AE-L model targets a broad range of adverse event symptoms, it is difficult to rationalize the relationship between the adverse event signals and types of anticancer drugs. However, the type of anticancer drugs would presumably closely correspond to the standard treatments of the cancer types of the patients. Based on the prescribed anticancer drugs, we can infer that a large percentage of the patients had breast or lung cancer, indicating that our study results were based on data from such a population. Thus, a possible direction for the expansion of this research would be adjusting the deep learning models by additional training with expressions for typical side effects associated with standard treatments of other cancer types. To interpret these results correctly, it should be noted that we could not investigate anticancer treatments conducted outside of the pharmacies (eg, the time-course relationship with intravenously administered drugs would be missed, as the administration will be done at hospitals). To further evaluate how useful this model is in side effect signal monitoring for patients with cancer, comprehensive medical information for the eligible patients would be required.

Suitability of the Deep Learning Models for Specific Adverse Event Symptoms

Among the adverse event signals identified by the AE-L model, the type of symptom was categorized according to a predefined annotation guideline that we previously developed [ 43 ]. The most frequently recorded adverse event signals identified by the AE-L model were “pain or numbness” (n=57, 36.3%), “fever” (n=46, 29.3%), and “nausea” (n=40, 25.5%; Table 6 ). Since the pharmaceutical care records had information about interventions by health care professionals, the frequency of the presence or absence of the interventions for each symptom was examined. A trend toward a greater proportion of interventions was observed in “fever,” “nausea,” “diarrhea,” “constipation,” “vomiting,” and “edema” ( Figure 3 , black boxes). There seem to be 2 possible explanations for this: these symptoms are of high importance and require early medical intervention or effective symptomatic treatments are available for these symptoms in clinical practice so that medical intervention is an easy option. On the other hand, a trend for a smaller proportion of adverse event signals to result in interventions was observed for “pain or numbness,” “fatigue,” “appetite loss,” “rash or itchy,” “taste disorder,” and “dizziness” ( Figure 3 , gray boxes). The reason for this may be the lack of effective symptomatic treatments or the difficulty of judging whether the severity of these symptoms justifies medical intervention by health care providers. In either case, there may be room for improvement in the quality of medical care for these symptoms. We expect that our research will contribute to a quality improvement in safety monitoring in clinical practice by supporting adverse event signal detection in a cost-effective manner.

Potential for Deep Learning Model Implementation in Society

Although we evaluated our deep learning models using pharmaceutical care records in this study, the main target of future implementation of our deep learning models in society would be narrative texts that patients directly write to record their daily experiences. For example, the application of these deep learning models to electronic media where patients record their daily experiences in their lives with disease (eg, health care–related e-communities and disease diary applications) could enable information about adverse event signal onset that patients experience to be provided to health care providers in a timely manner. Adverse event signals can automatically be identified and shared with health care providers based on the concern texts that patients post to any platform. This system will have the advantage that health care providers can efficiently grasp safety-related events that patients experience outside of clinic visits so that they can conduct more focused or personalized interactions with patients at their clinic visits. However, consideration should be given to avoid an excessive burden on health care providers. For instance, limiting the sharing of adverse event signals to those of high severity or summarizing adverse event signals over a week rather than sharing each one in a real-time manner may be reasonable approaches for medical staff. We also need to think about how to encourage patients to record their daily experiences using electronic tools. Not only technical progress and support but also the establishment of an ecosystem where both patients and medical staff can feel benefit will be required. Prospective studies with deep learning models to follow up patients in the long term and evaluate outcomes will be needed. We primarily looked at patient-authored texts as targets of implementation, but our deep learning models may also be worth using medical data including patients’ subjective concerns, such as pharmaceutical care S records. As this study confirmed that our deep learning models are applicable to patients’ concern texts tracked by pharmacists, it should be possible to use them to analyze other “patient voice-like” medical text data that have not been actively investigated so far.

Limitations

First, the major limitation of this study was that we were not able to collect complete medical information of the patients. Although we designed this study to analyze patients’ concerns extracted by the deep learning models and their relationship with medical information contained in the pharmaceutical care records, some information could not be tracked (eg, missing history of medical interventions or anticancer treatment at hospitals as well as diagnosis of patients’ primary cancers). Second, there might be a data creation bias in S records for patients’ concerns by pharmacists. For example, symptoms that have little impact on intervention decisions might less likely be recorded by them. It should be also noted that the characteristics of S records may not be consistent at different community pharmacies.

Conclusions

Our deep learning models were able to screen clinically important adverse event signals that require intervention by health care professionals from patients’ concerns in pharmaceutical care records. Thus, these models have the potential to support real-time adverse event monitoring of individual patients taking anticancer treatments in an efficient manner. We also confirmed that these deep learning models constructed based on patient-authored texts could be applied to patients’ subjective information recorded by pharmacists through their daily work. Further research may help to expand the applicability of the deep learning models for implementation in society or for analysis of data on patients’ concerns accumulated in professional records at pharmacies or hospitals.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI; grant 21H03170) and Japan Science and Technology Agency, Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST; grant JPMJCR22N1), Japan. Mr Yuki Yokokawa and Ms Sakura Yokoyama at our laboratory advised SN about the structure of pharmaceutical care records. This study would not have been feasible without the high quality of pharmaceutical care records created by many individual pharmacists at Nakajima Pharmacy Group through their daily work.

Data Availability

The data sets generated and analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Authors' Contributions

SN and SH designed the study. SN retrieved the subjective records of patients with cancer from the data source for the application of deep learning models and organized other data for subsequent evaluations. SN ran the deep learning models with the support of SW. SN, YY, and KS checked the adverse event signals for each subjective record that was extracted as positive by the models for hand-foot syndrome or adverse events limiting patients’ daily lives and evaluated the adverse event signal symptoms, details of interventions taken by health care professionals, and types of anticancer drugs prescribed for patients based on available data from the data source. HK and SI advised on the study concept and process. MS and RT provided pharmaceutical records at their community pharmacies along with advice on how to use and interpret them. SY and EA supervised the natural language processing research as specialists. SH supervised the study overall. SN drafted and finalized the paper. All authors reviewed and approved the paper.

Conflicts of Interest

SN is an employee of Daiichi Sankyo Co, Ltd. All other authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Performance evaluation of deep learning models.

Examples of S records and sample interview transcripts.

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Abbreviations

Edited by G Eysenbach; submitted 25.12.23; peer-reviewed by CY Wang, L Guo; comments to author 24.01.24; revised version received 14.02.24; accepted 09.03.24; published 16.04.24.

©Satoshi Nishioka, Satoshi Watabe, Yuki Yanagisawa, Kyoko Sayama, Hayato Kizaki, Shungo Imai, Mitsuhiro Someya, Ryoo Taniguchi, Shuntaro Yada, Eiji Aramaki, Satoko Hori. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 16.04.2024.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

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How to Find Sources | Scholarly Articles, Books, Etc.

Published on June 13, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on May 31, 2023.

It’s important to know how to find relevant sources when writing a  research paper , literature review , or systematic review .

The types of sources you need will depend on the stage you are at in the research process , but all sources that you use should be credible , up to date, and relevant to your research topic.

There are three main places to look for sources to use in your research:

Research databases

• Your institution’s library
• Other online resources

Table of contents

Library resources, other online sources, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about finding sources.

You can search for scholarly sources online using databases and search engines like Google Scholar . These provide a range of search functions that can help you to find the most relevant sources.

If you are searching for a specific article or book, include the title or the author’s name. Alternatively, if you’re just looking for sources related to your research problem , you can search using keywords. In this case, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the scope of your project and of the most relevant keywords.

Databases can be general (interdisciplinary) or subject-specific.

• You can use subject-specific databases to ensure that the results are relevant to your field.
• When using a general database or search engine, you can still filter results by selecting specific subjects or disciplines.

Example: JSTOR discipline search filter

Check the table below to find a database that’s relevant to your research.

Google Scholar

To get started, you might also try Google Scholar , an academic search engine that can help you find relevant books and articles. Its “Cited by” function lets you see the number of times a source has been cited. This can tell you something about a source’s credibility and importance to the field.

Example: Google Scholar “Cited by” function

Boolean operators

Boolean operators can also help to narrow or expand your search.

Boolean operators are words and symbols like AND , OR , and NOT that you can use to include or exclude keywords to refine your results. For example, a search for “Nietzsche NOT nihilism” will provide results that include the word “Nietzsche” but exclude results that contain the word “nihilism.”

Many databases and search engines have an advanced search function that allows you to refine results in a similar way without typing the Boolean operators manually.

Example: Project Muse advanced search

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You can find helpful print sources in your institution’s library. These include:

• Journal articles
• Encyclopedias
• Newspapers and magazines

Make sure that the sources you consult are appropriate to your research.

You can find these sources using your institution’s library database. This will allow you to explore the library’s catalog and to search relevant keywords. You can refine your results using Boolean operators .

Once you have found a relevant print source in the library:

• Consider what books are beside it. This can be a great way to find related sources, especially when you’ve found a secondary or tertiary source instead of a primary source .
• Consult the index and bibliography to find the bibliographic information of other relevant sources.

You can consult popular online sources to learn more about your topic. These include:

• Crowdsourced encyclopedias like Wikipedia

You can find these sources using search engines. To refine your search, use Boolean operators in combination with relevant keywords.

However, exercise caution when using online sources. Consider what kinds of sources are appropriate for your research and make sure the sites are credible .

Look for sites with trusted domain extensions:

• URLs that end with .edu are educational resources.
• URLs that end with .gov are government-related resources.
• DOIs often indicate that an article is published in a peer-reviewed , scientific article.

Other sites can still be used, but you should evaluate them carefully and consider alternatives.

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• ChatGPT vs human editor
• ChatGPT citations
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Using ChatGPT for your studies
• What is ChatGPT?
• Chicago style
• Paraphrasing

 Plagiarism

• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Consequences of plagiarism
• Common knowledge

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You can find sources online using databases and search engines like Google Scholar . Use Boolean operators or advanced search functions to narrow or expand your search.

For print sources, you can use your institution’s library database. This will allow you to explore the library’s catalog and to search relevant keywords.

It is important to find credible sources and use those that you can be sure are sufficiently scholarly .

• Consult your institute’s library to find out what books, journals, research databases, and other types of sources they provide access to.
• Look for books published by respected academic publishing houses and university presses, as these are typically considered trustworthy sources.
• Look for journals that use a peer review process. This means that experts in the field assess the quality and credibility of an article before it is published.

When searching for sources in databases, think of specific keywords that are relevant to your topic , and consider variations on them or synonyms that might be relevant.

Once you have a clear idea of your research parameters and key terms, choose a database that is relevant to your research (e.g., Medline, JSTOR, Project MUSE).

Find out if the database has a “subject search” option. This can help to refine your search. Use Boolean operators to combine your keywords, exclude specific search terms, and search exact phrases to find the most relevant sources.

There are many types of sources commonly used in research. These include:

You’ll likely use a variety of these sources throughout the research process , and the kinds of sources you use will depend on your research topic and goals.

Scholarly sources are written by experts in their field and are typically subjected to peer review . They are intended for a scholarly audience, include a full bibliography, and use scholarly or technical language. For these reasons, they are typically considered credible sources .

Popular sources like magazines and news articles are typically written by journalists. These types of sources usually don’t include a bibliography and are written for a popular, rather than academic, audience. They are not always reliable and may be written from a biased or uninformed perspective, but they can still be cited in some contexts.

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Ryan, E. (2023, May 31). How to Find Sources | Scholarly Articles, Books, Etc.. Scribbr. Retrieved April 15, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/working-with-sources/finding-sources/

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