The Rules for Citing References in a Research Paper

(According to Dr. White-Ziegler)

1. Cite often-probably more than you think! It is better to overdo it than to underdo it. Every piece of information that you discuss should be attributed to the primary source where it was first published. There is very little in a research paper that is general knowledge so the majority of information should be cited.

2. Cite at the beginning of the information. If a few sentences or paragraph is based on a single paper, put the reference after the first sentence that starts to describe the work and make sure it is clear from your writing that the information that follows is from that same source. If information is from different sources, a citation should appear at the end of each individual sentence that attributes the information to the appropriate source.

3. Clarify in the citation if something comes from a review. When a lot of background information is presented that you gleaned from a review, put “(reviewed in (1))” at the beginning of the information. This allows you to cite the information, but clarifies that you are not citing the primary sources.

4. Be wary of citing information from the internet. Follow the format below for citing online references that are peer reviewed. This will include all journals, professional scientific society web pages, government web pages (NIH, CDC, FDA, etc), and well known private foundations (American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, etc.). If the information is published, it is more credible to give the published reference rather than the web page. You should not cite information from course or personal web pages.

5. Use a consistent format. There are many formats that are used in citing references. Below I have provided the format used by American Society for Microbiology Press and Cell. Other styles are just as appropriate-just make sure to stay consistent within a format.

Suggested format for citing references from the American Society for Microbiology

With this format, references are cited in the text as numbers within parentheses (e.g. (1)), always found at the end of a sentence. The list of references are organized at the end of the manuscript in alphabetical order.

Referencing from journal articles or edited books

1. Hurme, R., and M. Rhen. 1998. Temperature sensing in bacterial gene regulation--what it all boils down to. Mol Microbiol 30:1-6. {For journal articles}

2. Neidhardt, F. C., and R. A. VanBogelen. 1987. Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium: Cellular and Molecular Biology, p. 1334-1345. In F. C. Neidhardt, J. L. Ingraham, K. B. Low, B. Magasanik, M. Schaechter, and H. E. Umbarger (ed.), Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium: Cellular and Molecular Biology. Am. Soc. Microbiol., Washington, DC. {For edited books}

On line referencing

1. Sullivan, C. J. (ed.). 1999–2001. Fungi: an evolving electronic resource for the microbiological community. ASM Press. [Online.] http://link.asmusa.de/link/service/books/91090. Accessed 7 September 2001. {For online-only books.}

2. van der Zeiss, L., and V. B. Danziger. 1999. History of clinical mirobiology. Clin. Microbiol. 100:123–234. [Online.] {For online versions of print journals.}

3. Zellnitz, F., and P. M. Foley. 2 October 1998, posting{or revision} date. History of virology. Am. Virol. J. 1:30–50. [Online.] http://www.avj.html. {For online only journals; page numbers may not be available.}

4. Zheng, Z., and J. Zou. 5 September 2001. The initial step of the glycerolipid pathway: identification of glycerol-3-phosphate/dihydroxyacetone phosphate dual substrate acyltransferases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J. Biol. Chem. 10.1074/jbc.M104749200. {For papers published online in manuscript form.}

Suggested format for citing references

from the journal Cell

With this format, references are cited in the text as author and year within parentheses always found at the end of a sentence (e.g. (Sondheimer and Lindquist, 2000)). The list of references are organized at the end of the manuscript in alphabetical order.

Article in a periodical: Sondheimer, N., and Lindquist, S. (2000). Rnq1: an epigenetic modifier of protein function in yeast. Mol. Cell 5, 163-172.

Article in a book: Sorenson, P.W., and Caprio, J.C. (1998). Chemoreception. In The Physiology of Fishes, D.H. Evans, ed. (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press), pp. 375-405.

An entire book: Cowan, W.M., Jessell, T.M., and Zipursky, S.L. (1997). Molecular and Cellular Approaches to Neural Development (New York: Oxford University Press).