Did you know that each one of the four citations in academic papers is usually wrong or misleading? Yes, that’s true. Many people make citation errors when using references in their research, and that causes confusion. That causes us difficulties as researchers, as it is difficult to follow who cited what and who did what later on.
That’s why it is important to properly reference your cited work in your academic paper writing. That is why in this article I wanted to talk about citations, especially how to avoid common citation mistakes in your research.
Some time ago I did talk about academic citations, but I focused on citation management systems. But I do want to talk about the 5 steps to properly reference your literature sources so that you don’t get others confused, and more importantly, so that you don’t get them angry.
I know you can relate to that because, you know it’s true that when you find a source that you really, really need and then you go to that original source and you realize that it’s wrong, the data is not there or the source doesn’t exist.
Annoying and very confusing. But such citation mistakes are really common!
I personally find it very irritating when people use the wrong references in their work. And this is something that peer reviewers won’t be able to pick up, that is unless they spend at least 3-5 hrs reading each paper – but who has this amount of time to check for common citation mistakes?
The ultimate way to reduce the citation mistakes in cited work is to educate and promote the right way of making citations. And that’s why I wanted to give you the 5 steps that I use to actually properly reference your sources so that you help others find the references that you actually used.
Step #1: Avoid common citation mistakes by defining your citation management strategy
Step number one to avoid common citation mistakes is to define your reference management strategy. I know the strategy is a fancy word that many people use, but it boils down to selection, whether you do your references manually or whether you use the software.
Managing your references manually has been there for ages. I used to do my references manually until my master’s thesis. Basically, when you do your references manually, it means that you have a document with your references and you keep track of what you cite and when you cite specific papers using your own manual management systems. It could be a piece of paper. It could be a document in Word. But the downside of managing your citations manually is that it tends to be quite time consuming. It may also be difficult to change the citation format.
Luckily, you can use software to automate this.
You can use Mendeley or Zotero or even EndNote to manage your references. Well, reference management software lets you create your own database of references and that database of references can be linked with any of your documents.
You can use the reference directly in MS Word or LaTeX and so on based on your database. And that database can be used later with any sort of documents that you use, you can copy-paste your text, and your references will be still active.
I need to make an important point here. You have to decide how you manage your references before you actually start writing. It’s easy to just jump into it, but it’s pretty important to understand what is involved. And then if you use software, remember it’s just software, so it can lead to citation mistakes.
Step #2: Avoid common citation mistakes by selecting the appropriate citation style for your document
Step number two, you do need to decide on your citation style. Note that in many cases of academic writing, the citation style is usually predefined. You need to check the specific guideline that you need to follow when writing your academic texts. If you are writing a thesis, your university might actually have a guideline and requirement to use a specific referencing style.
The same applies to academic journals. Please do check the guidelines for authors because they usually specify what sort of references they want. If the guideline doesn’t specify any specific citation style, please do check already published papers – you will be able to see what sort of citation style was used by other people who published in this specific journal.
In terms of the types of citation style, we usually distinguish two main types.
The author-date type (i.e. Harvard citation style) is a citation style where you use the author’s name and date when making the intext citations. The bibliography, or your reference list, follows a pretty standard format that is a list of authors, publication date, the title of the journal paper, and then you got the journal name with its characteristics, such as volume, issue, and page. Of course, different documents will be cited differently.
Please do refer to the Harvard citation style guidelines for details. Note that you may need to find a detailed guideline on each specific type of author-date citation style.
We do also have a numbered citation style, where you number references in chronological order as they appear in your text. It is sometimes referred to as an author-number citation style.
In this citation style, the first paper that you ever cite in your document would be number one. The next paper would be number two and so on. You can check the Vancouver citation style guidelines for details.
Of course, there are many different variants of author-number citation style. You can have numbers in square brackets. You can have numbers in normal brackets. You can have numbers in footnotes and so on. So again, I advise you to double-check what is required and make sure that you follow it properly.
An extra piece of advice: If you use reference management software, you can easily select different styles. Then, for example, if you submit your paper to a different journal, you will be able to quickly modify your referencing style. I find this pretty useful, as using such tools helps me reduce the time and effort I spend on academic writing. Cool, huh?
Step #3: Avoid common citation mistakes by keeping track of your references
Step number three, you do have to keep track of your references. Even if you use software, you do need to use it, right? It is not enough just to put the reference into the software database. You do need to put that citation in your document, usually in the form of intext citation.
What I mean by this is whenever you copy a passage from another document, for example, to save it for later, you do have to link to it. Note I don’t mean this in the form of plagiarism. Want to learn how to avoid plagiarism? Check out my mini-course on how to avoid plagiarism in your research.
The easiest way is if you copy the text of interest into your document or if you write down something based on another ource, and then to put a reference next to it so that you don’t lose that literature source.
Note that if you use or modify figures, tables, data (or anything really) from the literature that already is there, you do need to cite it. Missing citations is one of the most critical citation errors I see in academic papers .These are especially common when we use figures or tables from other sources.
Leep track of your sources, make sure that you develop a habit of directly citing the literature sources once you used them, once you make any notes. Even if you created a table with a list of sources do link that table with your software or link that table with your manual management system. This will allow you to keep track of your references and you will never need to worry about missing references in your academic writing.
Step #4: Avoid common citation mistakes by using appropriate academic writing referencing styles
Step number four, use references properly in your academic texts. I already told you that there are different types of referencing styles that you can use in your academic papers. But here I mean something different. There are actually different types of references that you will use in your write-up.
Confusing, huh? I know. But we have to deal with it and it isn’t that difficult.
What I mean by different types of references? We have, intext citations, reference lists and ven footnotes.
Intext citation is where you actually put a reference to a specific document from the literature at the beginning or at the end of the sentence.
Here is an example of intext citation: if I were quoting some of my papers, I would say ‘Hanak et al. (2022) have stated that […]‘ and then the sentence that I want to write.
I can also write the sentence first. I can say that ‘carbon capture is one of the most recognized technology for the reduction of carbon dioxide from coal-fired plants.’ And then at the end of that sentence, I can put a bracket with the refernece (Hanak et al., 2022).
The above example assumed the use of Harvard citation style. If I were to use the Vancouver citation style, I would write it as:
- ‘Hanak et al. [1] have stated that […]‘
- ‘carbon capture is one of the most recognized technology for the reduction of carbon dioxide from coal-fired plants [1].’
Hope you get the difference? Of course, depending on th citation style that you use, you will use squared or round brackets, or event footnotes.
When the citation style guidelines ask you to use footnotes, you will follow the numbered citation style, but instead of having the reference list, you would list the full reference in the footnote at the bottom of the page where your reference was placed.
Wondering what is the reference list I mentioned above? It is nothing else than the full list of the citations that you made in your work. Each academic document, regardless of whether this is thesis, paper or even presentation, should include a reference list or bibliography at the end.
Make sure that you update your reference list each time you change something in your text, i.e., when you add a new reference and so on. It should update automatically if you use software, but sometimes there might be some glitches that would prevent the update from happening. And as a result, your reference list might be incomplete or you might have some uncited references in your paper, and that’s usually picked up by the journal.
Do make sure that you double-check your reference list before submission.
Step #4: Avoid common citation mistakes by using appropriate academic writing referencing styles
Step number five, which builds on what I’ve just said, you do need to verify your references, intext citations and reference list before you submit your work to a journal or as a thesis.
It is a crucial step, because software is just software. If you use software and it might not capture all the data, especially if you use auto-capture features and plugins. Such tools may not capture volumes, page numbers, the appropriate journal names and so on. That is why you do need to check whether you’ve got all the bibliographic data that helps other researchers identify the sources you used in your academic paper.
Also, you may want to double check whether there are any subscripts, superscripts, or any other formatting issues that you need to correct to ensure make sure that your references look professional, tidy and clear.
Conclusion
I do hope that the above 5 steps to avoid common citation mistakes will help you correctly cite literature sources in your work.
After all, referencing shouldn’t be difficult. It’s just a process that you should follow and that should help you avoid citation mistakes in your references so that your academic text doesn’t contribute to one 1 of 4 miscited papers in the current literature.
I do trust this is helpful! If you need support with academic writing, developing your research or academic profile, please do contact me. I’m always happy to help.
At Motivated Academic, we’ve prepared resources for early-career researchers that will help you build a successful career without overwhelm.
And if you like this article and accompanying video, please do share it with your colleagues and friends. I want to help as many people as possible because I want my mission to support others in achieving academic success by share my experience. Because what’s the point of gaining experience if you cannot share it, right?
So I do hope you enjoyed this and let’s work together at some point.
