When it comes
to literature and writing, citation is a reference to a
published or unpublished source although it might be always be a reference to
the original source. To be more precise, a citation is an abbreviated
alphanumeric expression that is inserted in the body of a literary work that symbolizes
an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work to acknowledge the
relevance of the research carried out by others that relates to the topic of
discussion where the citation appears.
In most of
the cases, the combination of both the in-body citation and the bibliographic
entry make up what is commonly thought of as a citation. Citation serves
several important tasks, while on one hand it upholds intellectual
honesty and enables the writer to avoid plagiarism and gives due to
create to the original works and ideas, on the other hand, it allows the
readers to determine on their own if they agree with the supported research or
not.
Whether we
use resources that include books, journals, or websites in our research papers,
assignments and dissertations, it is necessary to give credit to the original
author by citing the sources properly in whichever style that has been
predetermined by the teacher or instructor. Citations help the readers to find
the sources again for literary purposes.
Different Citation Styles and Different Writing
Techniques
There are a
number of different citation styles with their different dissertation writing techniques
that depend on the discipline in which it has been determined.
Citation
styles can be broadly divided into styles common to the Humanities and the
Sciences, but there have been instances of overlap and these styles are used
according to the needs of the writers. The various citation styles specify the
order of appearance, that include publication date, title, and page numbers
following the author name, in addition to conventions of punctuation, use of
italics, emphasis, parenthesis, quotation marks, etc., particular to their
style. Here is an
overview to a variety of citation styles:
- The Chicago Style (CMOS) is most widely used in history and economics as well as social sciences and uses both in-text citation systems and/or footnotes or endnotes, including use of "content notes" along with in-text citation by page number or by year of publication.
- Turabian style is closely related to CMOS only distinguished by removing quotation marks in reference lists, and mandatory access date citation.
- The Columbia Style provides detailed guidelines for citing internet sources.
- Harvard referencing style refers to a specific kind of parenthetical referencing that includes a short author-date reference, e.g., "(Smith, 2000)", being inserted after the cited text within parentheses and the full reference to the source being listed at the end of the article.
- MLA style is most often used in the arts and the humanities, particularly in English studies. This style of citations and bibliographical format uses parenthetical referencing with author-page (Smith 395) or author-[short] title-page (Smith, Contingencies 42) in the case of more than one work by the same author within parentheses in the text, keyed to an alphabetical list of sources on a "Works Cited" page at the end of the paper, as well as notes (footnotes or end notes).
- The American Psychological Association or APA style is mostly used in social sciences. This style uses Harvard referencing within the text, lists the author's name and year of publication, with alphabetical list of sources at the end of the paper on a separate references page.
Citation is
the right way to give credit to the writers for their creative and intellectual
efforts used to support research. It is also a great way to locate specific resources
and avoid plagiarism by providing the author’s name, date, location or
publication year to ensure that the right information is being given. No matter
how different these citations styles are and offer different writing
techniques, the end result is to give due credit and make a valid argument.
