A researcher has to study external resources for understanding various aspects of the research area and writing the research reports, papers and publications. A researcher should give a proper citation for each external source (e.g. a book, report, paper, magazine etc) which is used for preparing a research thesis, paper or publication. The citation for the external sources is necessary for the following reasons:

1. To prove authenticity of facts and figures
2. To make the information more reliable
3. To give a credit to the original author
4. To avoid plagiarism – as it is work of others

   CITING THE EXTERNAL SOURCES

An external source is cited within the content where a part of external source is presented as well as in the list of references given at the end of the research thesis, report or paper. For correct citation, reference for each source should be given at these both places: within the content as well as in the list of reference at the end of the document, as follows:

1. In-text Citation
2. Bibliography / Reference List

There are three widely accepted styles of writing references (1. APA Style, 2. MLA Style, and 3. Chicago Style) which have different formats for citing a source within the content (in-text citation) as well as in the References List. However, before discussing these styles, let's first explain In-text Citation and References List.

 In-text Citation

In-text citation means to cite an information or statement taken from other source within the content of your research report. It is simply done by writing the last name of the author and year of the publication within the same sentence.

Example: A researcher has to include a statment (or fact) from some book in his own thesis to support his stance. The statment is “women do two-third of world’s work but only receive ten percent of world's income”. The details of the book (from which this statment is taken) are as follows:

Author:                             Michelle Stanworth
Year of Publication:         1983

There are two common ways of in-text citation for the above statement.

1. By writing the last name of author and year of publication of book in parenthesis, within the same sentence:

 Women contribute to two-third of word’s work but earn only 10% of word’s income (Stanworth, 1983).

2. By starting sentence with the last name of author and mentioning year of publication of book in parenthesis:

 Stanworth (1983) stated that women contribute to two third of world’s work but earn only 10% of the world’s income.

  Bibliography / Reference List

The same source will be also cited in the Bibliography / Reference list at the end of the research report. To cite the source in the Bibliography / Reference list, you will need to cite it with its complete details, e.g. author name, year of publication, book title, place of publication, name of publisher

These details for the above source are as follows:

Book title:                            Gender and Schooling
Author:                                 Michelle Stanworth
Year of Publication:             1983
Place of Publication:           London
Publisher:                            Hutchinson

To cite same source in reference list, you will write its reference as:

References

 Stanworth, M. (1983). Gender and Schooling. London: Hutchinson.

As you can see the above the above reference is written in proper format having the details of the source in a specific sequence. This means that for writing a reference a specific format is followed. There are approved styles (format) for writing the references, e.g. APA Style, MLA style, and Chicago style. The above reference has been written according to APA Style. Let's discuss different referencing styles briefly to give you an idea.

  STYLES OF REFERENCING

There are three widely accepted styles for writing references which are used by the researchers and authors across the world. These styles are as follows:

1. APA Style (American Psychological Association) - used in Psychology, Education Sociology and other social sciences
2. MLA Style (Modern Language Association) - used in Humanities
3. Chicago Style - used in Fine Arts, History and Business studies

The purpose of using above styles is to give a common format to references which is easily understable by all people.

All the three referencing styles will be explained briefly here using the following example:

Book title:                            The Mediation Process
Author:                                   Christoper Moore
Year of Publication:              1996
Place of Publication:             San Francisco
Publisher:                              Jossey-Bass Publishers
Page No.                                 37

Statement to cite:  “Mediation is a process wherein an individual facilitates negotiations between disputing parties to reach an agreement.”

In-text citation: Only the last name of the author and year of publication will be written within the same sentence, e.g., (last name, year).

Example.

 Mediation is a process wherein an individual facilitates negotiations between disputing parties to reach an agreement (Moore, 1996).

A researcher may sometimes also include the page number of the source. The page number is written in the in-text citation such as follows:

Example.

 Mediation is a process wherein an individual facilitates negotiations between disputing parties to reach an agreement (Moore, 1996,  p. 37).

References list: Following format is followed for citing a book:

Last name of author, Initial of first name. (Year of publication in parenthesis). Book title in italics. Place of Publication: Publishers.

Example.

 Moore, C. (1996). The Mediation Process. Sans Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

In text citation: The last name of author and page number of the book are written in parenthesis within the sentence which is to be cited.

(Last name of author page-number)

Example.

 Mediation is a process wherein an individual facilitates negotiations between disputing parties to reach an agreement (Moore 37).

Reference list: The following format is used

Last name of author, first name of author. Book title in Italics. Place of publication, Publishers, Year of Publication.

Example.

 Moore, Christopher. The Mediation Process. Sans Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996.

It can be seen that unlike APA style, the year in MLA style comes at the end of the reference and is written without parenthesis.

In-text citation: Chicago style uses two ways for in-text citation: First way is like APA style. The name of author and year are written in parenthesis within the same line, as follow.

 Mediation is a process wherein an individual facilitates negotiations between disputing parties to reach an agreement (Moore 37).

Second way is to use footnotes.  The sentence is given a number and using that number a short citation is given at the end of the same page.

Example.

 Mediation is a process wherein an individual facilitates negotiations between disputing parties to reach an agreement [1].

Footnote: (at the end of same page)
  1. Moore, The Mediation Process, 37

Reference List: The citation style for reference list is almost same like that of MLA style.

Last name of author, First name of author. Book title in Italics. Place of publication: Publishers.

Example.

  Moore, Christopher. 1996. The Mediation Process. Sans Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

KEY POINTS TO UNDERSTAND

1. Each of the above style has a specific format for citing different sources such as book, research paper, and research thesis. All of the above formats are for a book. There are little variation for formats to cite other type of source, e.g. research paper.
2. You can also add the page number and edition number of source in the reference according to the chosen style of referencing.
3. Each of the above formats is updated from time to time. There are various versions of each style which have very minor changes.
4. The references in the Bibliography or Reference List are written in alphabetical order but without giving them number or bullets (point marks).
5. This article is to give the basic idea of citation and referencing in research. The details of each style are also available on this site.