The recognition of a scientist in their community of science is often the credential to be able to get
- Financial Funding
- Higher ranking on application for an open position
- Applications for open positions
- Higher ranking for submissions of publications at conferences and journals
➥ In short: Credits are Fame in the science community
The main source of credits for scientists is recognition of their work. The more their work is known in the science community, the more credits they get.
How to measure the spread of knowledge about a specific work?
To be able to given an answer to this question the science community established a formal requirement (derifed from ethics in science).
It is common sense in science publications, that pre-research existing work and publications, that are used as base or in the research, are marked with their
- author
- title
- date of publication
- location of publication
- Name of journal
- Page numbers
- DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
to give credit to the authors of the used work.
This marking is called citation in scientific publications.
The citation are done in two types
- In-Text Citation
- Direct quote
Refers to the situation that an author wants to reason about a point and emphasize the reason, by mention existing work as a proof.
Example:
According to (Wikipedia:Citation Nov. 2019) a combination of in-body citation and bibliographic entries are citations.
Refers to the situation that an author wants to use a part of text from an existing work. If this form is used the quoted text must be an excact copy of the text in the quoted work, with the same errors. In direct quotes, no modifcations to the text quoted are allowed.
Example:
"... Generally the combination of both the in-body citation and the bibliographic entry constitutes what is commonly thought of as a citation ..." (Wikipedia:Citation Nov. 2019)
There are several forms, how a previous work and its authors are cited:
- APA (American Psychological Association)
- MLA (Modern Language Association)
- Chicago/Turabien style
- Harvard/Harvard-Canterbury
- Vancouver
Beside that in most styles there is a bibliography section in an appendix.
Independent of the style used in a document, it should be consistend in the whole document and not mixed.
The APA Style originated in 1992 out of a group of psychologists, anthropologists and business managers related to psychological entities.
The APA Style states, that there must be three kind of informations must be included in in-text citations.
- The main authors last name
- Date of publication
- Only in direct quotes page number of quoted text
It also defines the style of references in the bibligraphy section for several types of materials.
Example a book in print:
Tanenbaum, A. S.; Bos, H. (2015). Modern operating systems. Boston: Pearson
Is a style used in works on language and literature. This style defines several different styles for in-text and direct quote citations.
Out of the wide range of source types used in works on language and/or literature, there is a need to be able to correctly record all needed informations about a source.
Therefore it is not possible to list examples for all this types here. For more information have a look at the MLA official website. It has tools and guides to build correct citations and references for all types of possible sources in this branch of science.
This is the oldest style and has been defined and published by the Chicago University Press in 1906.
It defines two types of notations
- Notes and Bibliography
This notation uses numbered on page notes (mentions on the bottom of a page) and a bibliography in the appendix. In the text the notes are then referenced by the number. The numbering starts on each page by one. And should be raised on the text baseline.
- Author-Date
This notation denotes a reference in the same mannor as shown in APA style and a bibliography in the appendix.
In-Text:
Douglas Adams has written in his universe, that it is completly normal to get anything you need if you have a towel.¹
Direct quote:
... a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". ¹
Note at end of Page:
¹Adams, Douglas, 1952-2001. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Harmony Books, 1980.
Duplicate Note later:
In-Text:
Douglas Adams has written in his universe, that it is completly normal to get anything you need if you have a towel.¹
Note at end of Page:
¹_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_
Bibliography:
Adams, Douglas, 1952-2001. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Harmony Books, 1980.
In-Text:
Douglas Adams has written in his universe, that it is completly normal to get anything you need if you have a towel. (Adams 1952-2001)
Direct quote:
... a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". (Adams 1952-2001, 42)
Bibliography:
Adams, Douglas, 1952-2001. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Harmony Books, 1980.
The harvard style is a more loose style and the exact definition, punctuation and informations about a source to include may vary by country and/or institution.
In general this style uses in-text citations without footnotes (notes on page bottom). Commonly the main authors last name is used and in parenthesis the publication date.
For direct qoutes the page numbers prefixed with p. is added to the
publication date.
Additionally it allows to cite citations. Example: Smith (1993, quoted by Gibbs 1998, p. 78)
The bibliography entries in this style are similar to Chicago and APA style.
Often you also see references in brackets instead of parenthesis. And often
Mostly used by medical publications, the main difference to others is the use of numerical short references. And all entries in the bibliography have the same number as they are referenced in the text. That means, that the numbers are not reset by page change and are consecutive.
In-Text:
Douglas Adams has written in his universe, that it is completly normal to get anything you need if you have a towel[1].
Direct quote:
... a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". [1]
Bibliography:
[1] Adams, Douglas, 1952-2001. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Harmony Books, 1980.
If citing a often changing source (ex. website), a copy of the source in question must be supplied in an open readable format. (ex. PDF)