Citations and References

Academic writing lies at the heart of school, college, and university life. Perfecting the art of writing a good essay will stand you in good stead throughout the whole of your career. In postgraduate research, a well-presented paper could be the key to getting funding for your project or even landing a top position with a major corporation. The essence of academic writing lies in the tone, word choice, phrasing and especially in your citations and references.

A citation is a reference to another source of material – published or unpublished. A citation can refer to an article, journal, book, website, or YouTube video. Any time you quote, paraphrase or summarise the essential elements of someone else’s work in your essay, an in-text citation should follow. An in-text citation is a brief notation within the text of your paper or presentation which refers the reader to a fuller notation, or end-of-paper citation in the form of a reference list, that provides all necessary details about that source of information.?

Citations and referencing are necessary to preserve academic integrity. Using another person’s work and passing it off as your own is plagiarism. Possible consequences of plagiarism include a failing grade for the assignment,?a failing grade for the course, and even termination from your academic institution. Accurate and appropriate referencing allows your readers to follow up on the ideas presented in your paper, verify the information and conduct their own research on the subject. Citations show how your research builds on the research of others. Accurate citations after a phrase that you use to build your argument derived from another author show the reader that all other sentences are from your original thinking, and this gives credibility to your thesis, even if contrarian or indeed groundbreaking.

Several common citations and referencing styles are commonly used in academic writing. The citation styles (also known as documentation styles or bibliographic styles) widely used by college students are MLA, APA, CMOS, CSE and Harvard.

MLA (Modern Languages Association) style is associated with the humanities: languages, literature, philosophy, religion and the arts.

APA (American Psychological Association) style is associated with the social sciences: psychology and behavioural science, education, sociology, anthropology, business, economics, political science, and criminal justice.

CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style) is associated primarily with history but is sometimes used in humanities and other social science fields.

CSE (Council of Editors) style is associated with the natural sciences.

Harvard is a very common referencing style, sometimes called a parenthetical citation or ‘author-date’ style. This is very common among academic institutions at the undergraduate level.

Different subjects have their own referencing style, such as IEEE for engineering and OSCOLA for the legal profession. There are literally thousands of citation styles associated with different journals, publishing companies, and library databases.

Citations and referencing are important parts of academic writing. It is essential that you present both your in-text citations and your reference list fully and accurately. A proofreading service such as Perfect Proofreaders is here to help you with this vital element of your academic success. We will ensure that every citation in your text matches your given style perfectly. Even when using an APA 7 citation generator (especially a free APA citation generator), mistakes are sure to occur. Et al citations are particularly prone to errors. We will proofread every single entry in your reference list and check that it is correct. We address title capitalisation, italicisation, punctuation, parentheses, page numbering and formatting. You can confidently submit your essay, thesis or dissertation using our proofreading services. Send us your citations and reference list – we will make them perfect.