CZ:Citation style

(This is a preliminary draft)

A citation allows the reader to verify a statement made in the text, see the source of data, gain more detail about a claim , or to explore the original context of a quoted passage. Perhaps the best way to supply this citation information is to mark the text with a superscript hyperlink to a note, like this , and then provide in the hyperlinked note an unambiguous direction to reliable source that validates the statement, such as a published book, a scholarly journal, or a government agency website.

The placement the citation markup is usually just after the section to which the citation is most relevant, or at the end of the paragraph, where there may be more than one source of validation may be indicated.

The advantage of this last method is that it minimizes the number of superscripted numbers appearing in the text.

The markup code used to produce the note [1] is this:

<ref name=Example1>A definitive direction to the source of the information is supplied here.</ref>

If a citation is used several times in the one article it is useful to give the citation a name.

This is done the first time a source is used by using the markup <ref name=Dickens1859>

The named reference markup for the note [3] is easy to repeat here using its name.

Listing the notes used in an article

The <references/> markup produces the following result when placed just here:

It produces a list of all notes used in the text. See how note [3] has two symbols which are superscripted links referring back to where [3] was used in the text. Try clicking on them to see the service they provide to the reader.

Note too how the references are organized in numerical order automatically by the <references/> markup.

Placement of the citation list

Generally the collected citation list is placed directly after the main article.

Content of the citation

Here is a full citation of an article in a scientific journal that provides comprehensive and definitive information about the source of the article:

Benner SA, Ellington AD, Tauer A. (1989) Modern metabolism as a palimpsest of the RNA world. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the U S A. Volume 86, pages 7054-8 PMID 2476811

This provides in order the names of the author, year of publication, article title (hyperlinked to the original full article) the full journal title, volume, pages and the code used by the PubMEd medical abstracting service PMID 2476811.

Using such a long and comprehensive title conveys maximum information to the reader, but which many references are cited, takes up much space

It is therefore usual to abbreviate the citation, and it is suggested that most journal citations on Citizendium should follow this form (very similar the internet publication Public Library of Science Biology (PLoS Biology), which provides a good model for consistent citation style at Citizendium (see below).

Benner SA et al. (1989) Modern metabolism as a palimpsest of the RNA world. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 86:7054-8 PMID 2476811

Note that et al. stands for the Latin et alia, meaning 'and others'.

Alternatively even shorter abbreviations might be used in some articles, relying on certain unique codes now available for scientific articles.

Benner SA et al. (1989) PMID 2476811

The markup for this last citation is simple

Benner SA ''et al.'' (1989) PMID 2476811

Note how the Mediawiki software provides an automatic hyperlink to a very useful summary and cross references at the PubMed website.

Examples of other citation styles in the natural sciences

Here are three examples of citations from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, a well respected scientific journal (often called just PNAS by scientists).

1. Lockhart, P. J., Steel, M. A., Hendy, M. D. & Penny, D. (1994) Mol. Biol. Evol. 11, 605-612

2. Syvanen, M. & Kado, C. I., eds. (1998) Horizontal Gene Transfer (Chapman & Hall, London).

3. Day, M. (1998) in Horizontal Gene Transfer, eds. Syvanen, M. & Kado, C. I. (Chapman & Hall, London), pp. 144-167.

Citation 1 is a journal citation but unfortunately for the reader PNAS USA does not give the article's title. Note the volume number is given in bold text, followed by page numbers. 2 is a book and 3 a book chapter.

The following another PNAS citation of an article in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford Journals:

4. Lake, J. A. (1991) Mol. Biol. Evol. 8, 378-385

It is available on line as a pdf file

Here we will find, at last, an article title:

Letter to the Editor. The Order of Sequence Alignment Can Bias the Selection of Tree Topology. James A. Lake

In the text of Lake (1991), the citation style is like this: (Lake et al. 1984; Woese and Olsen 1986), and in the end-notes the citations are listed like this:

LITERATURE CITED

BALDACCI, B., F. GUINET, J. TILLIT, G. ZACCAI, and A.-M. DE RECONDO. 1990. Functional

implications related to the gene structure of the elongation factor EF-Tu form Halobacterium

marismortui. Nucleic Acids Res. 18:507-511.

The article titles are given in full, but the system for providing page numbers is different from PNAS, and the author's names are capitalized.

In short, many different citation styles are used today in scholarly literature.

How can authors work out how to cite publications correctly

A guide for how to provide citation details is provided to prospective authors by each scholarly publication. One accessible example is from the internet publication Public Library of Science Biology (PLoS Biology), an Open Access journal. They give the following guidelines for submitted manuscripts:

"PLoS uses the numbered citation (citation-sequence) method. References are listed and numbered in the order that they appear in the text. In the text, citations should be indicated by the reference number in brackets. Multiple citations within a single set of brackets should be separated by commas. Where there are more than three sequential citations, they should be given as a range. ... For all references, list the first five authors; add "et al." if there are additional authors. You can include a DOI number for the full-text article as an alternative to or in addition to traditional volume and page numbers. Please use the following style for the reference list:

Published Papers

1. Sanger F, Nicklen S, Coulson AR (1977) DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 74: 5463–5467.

Accepted Papers

Same as above, but "In press" appears instead of the page numbers. Example: Adv Clin Path. In press.

Electronic Journal Articles

1. Loker WM (1996) "Campesinos" and the crisis of modernization in Latin America. Jour Pol Ecol 3. Available: http://www.library.arizona.edu/ej/jpe/volume_3/ascii-lokeriso.txt. Accessed 11 August 2006.

Books

1. Bates B (1992) Bargaining for life: A social history of tuberculosis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 435 p.

Book Chapters

1. Hansen B (1991) New York City epidemics and history for the public. In: Harden VA, Risse GB, editors. AIDS and the historian. Bethesda: National Institutes of Health. pp. 21–28."

(End of direct quote from PLoS Biology)

Practice at Citizendium

The principles behind the choice of any style of citations to provide the reader with enough information to find the source for himself or herself, with efficient use of limited space and an aesthetically pleasing appearance on the page. Although Citizendium is an electronic encyclopedia, there are nevertheless limitations on space to enable articles to be printed compactly. Electronic links mean that, strictly, fewer details need be given to enable sources to be located efficiently - for a citation on PubMed everything is redundant except the PMID number. However citations do more than merely point to a source, they are also open acknowledgements of the origin of ideas and information. Listing sources clearly is an explicit and courteous recognition of the debt that authors have to other authors.