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A researcher has to study external resources for understanding various aspects of the research
area and writing the research reports, papers and publications. A researcher should give a
proper citation for each external source (e.g. a book, report, paper, magazine etc) which is used
for preparing a research thesis, paper or publication. The citation for the external sources is
An external source is cited within the content where a part of external source is presented as
well as in the list of references given at the end of the research thesis, report or paper. For
correct citation, reference for each source should be given at these both places: within the
content as well as in the list of reference at the end of the document, as follows:
1. In-text Citation
Chicago Style) which have different formats for citing a source within the content (in-text
citation) as well as in the References List. However, before discussing these styles, let's first
■ In-text Citation
In-text citation means to cite an information or statement taken from other source within the
content of your research report. It is simply done by writing the last name of the author and year
Example: A researcher has to include a statment (or fact) from some book in his own thesis to
support his stance. The statment is "women do two-third of world's work but only receive ten
percent of world's income". The details of the book (from which this statment is taken) are as
follows:
1. By writing the last name of author and year of publication of book in parenthesis, within the
same sentence:
■ Women contribute to two-third of word's work but earn only 10% of word's income (Stanworth,
1983).
2. By starting sentence with the last name of author and mentioning year of publication of
book in parenthesis: . Stanworth (1983) stated that women contribute to two third of
The same source will be also cited in the Bibliography/Reference list at the end of the research
report. To cite the source in the Bibliography/Reference list, you will need to cite it with its
complete details, e.g. author name, year of publication, book title, place of publication, name of
publisher
Publisher: Hutchinson
To cite same source in reference list, you will write its reference as:
References
As you can see the above the above reference is written in proper format having the details of
the source in a specific sequence. This means that for writing a reference a specific format is
followed. There are approved styles (format) for writing the references, e.g. APA Style, MLA
style, and Chicago style. The above reference has been written according to APA Style.
I
STYLES OF REFERENCING
There are three widely accepted styles for writing references which are used by the researchers
The purpose of using above styles is to give a common format to references which is easily
All the three referencing styles will be explained briefly here using the following example:
Year of Publication:1996
Publisher:Jossey-Bass Publishers
Page No.37
■ In-text citation: Only the last name of the author and year of publication will be written within
Example.
A researcher may sometimes also include the page number of the source. The page number is
Example.
Last name of author, Initial of first name. (Year of publication in parenthesis). Book title in italics.
Example.
2 MLA STYLE
In text citation: The last name of author and page number of the book are written in parenthesis
Last name of author, first name of author. Book title in Italics. Place of publication, Publishers,
Year of Publication.
Example.
Moore, Christopher. The Mediation Process. Sans Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996.
It can be seen that unlike APA style, the year in MLA style comes at the end of the reference and
3 CHICAGO Style
In-text citation: Chicago style uses two ways for in-text citation: First way is like APA style. The
name of author and year are written in parenthesis within the same line, as follow.
Second way is to use footnotes. The sentence is given a number and using that number a short
Example.
• Reference List: The citation style for reference list is almost same like that of MLA style.
Last name of author, First name of author. Book title in Italics. Place of publication: Publishers.
Example.
Moore, Christopher. 1996. The Mediation Process. Sans Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.