<\/span><\/h2>\nIn writing a research paper, a researcher draws upon many sources of information, knowledge, opinions, and so on. <\/span>One of the the <\/span>most common <\/span>type<\/span>s<\/span> of <\/span>reference<\/span>s<\/span>\u00a0in research papers<\/span> is other research papers published in journals; other common sources include technical reports, handbooks, presentations at conferences, and books. Increasingly, the sources in research papers are digital and include web pages, databases, blog posts, and even tweets and emails.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nNot all sources are considered equally credible, and some may not be accessible to all because they are behind paywalls or available only to members of a network (company intranets, for example) or because they are personal exchanges.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>How to write references in research papers <\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\nIf the citations follow the Harvard system, <\/span>references in a research paper<\/span>s are sorted alphabetically by the last name of the first author; if the citations follow the Vancouver system, the references are arranged by numbers: the reference corresponding to the first numbered citation is numbered 1, and so on. If a source is cited again, its allocated number does not change.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSome additional conventions govern the alphabetic sorting of <\/span>references in research papers<\/span>. For instance, when authors have some papers in which they are the only author and others in which they have one or more co-authors or when the same author or authors have papers published in different years or even within the same year.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSome publishers make even greater demands of <\/span>references in research papers<\/span>: authors are expected to sort the list of references alphabetically, as in the Harvard system; then number the sorted list serially; and then renumber all the citations within the text so that each corresponds to its new number!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>How to add references in a research paper: Key elements<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\nFor a source of information to be described accurately, some minimum details are required. Here\u2019s one example of <\/span><\/span>w<\/span><\/span>rit<\/span><\/span><\/span>ing<\/span><\/span> references in research paper<\/span><\/span><\/span>s<\/span> \u2013 \u2018<\/span><\/span>Nature<\/span><\/span> 171<\/span><\/span>: 737\u2019 is a code that, if you know how to decipher it, tells you that it means an article published in <\/span><\/span>Nature<\/span><\/span> (a weekly journal published from the UK) that begins on page 737 of volume 171 of that journal. However, it does not tell you what the article was about, who wrote it, when it was published, or even how long it is. <\/span>A<\/span> complete <\/span><\/span>reference in research paper<\/span><\/span><\/span>s<\/span><\/span> (Fig. 1), <\/span>however, tells you that the title of the article was \u2018Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid\u2019, that it was written by J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick, that it was published in 1953, and that it ran to no <\/span>more than two pages.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n| Watson J D and Crick F H C. 1953. Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid.\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0171<\/strong>: 737\u2013738<\/p>\n Fig. 1<\/strong>\u00a0A typical reference to a paper published in a journal<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nWhen thinking about <\/span>how to <\/span>write research <\/span>references<\/span>, remember that the elements that make up a reference to an article published in a journal are different from those that make up a reference to a book (edition if not the first, the publisher, and the place of publication, although the last is no longer considered essential in today\u2019s globalized publishing). The elements that make up a reference to a technical report include the name of the organization issuing that report and the report number, if any, and that to a conference presentation gives the title of the conference, the date(s) on which it was held and the place, the name of the organizer(s) of the conference, and so on.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nNote that journals or publishers differ in the elements they expect authors to include when they state <\/span>how to <\/span>put<\/span> references in research papers<\/span>; for example, some journals give only minimal information and exclude the titles of articles and some use the \u2018elided\u2019 form of page numbers (737\u201338 instead of 737\u2013738, for example).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThen there is the question of abbreviated names of journals: some publishers abbreviate journal titles and some don\u2019t (<\/span>Annals of Applied Biology<\/span><\/i> or Ann. Appl. Biol.). And those who do, often disagree on the correct abbreviation\u2014and on whether the abbreviations should end in dots (whether the word \u2018Journal\u2019 should be given as J. or J or Jnl or Jnl.).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n |
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