BIOL 311 - Principles of Genetics

When citing...

...you acknowledge another person's ideas, whether you have quoted them directly or not. You are also trying to provide enough information for your reader to find the source that you consulted.  A citation provides brief details of the author and date of publication within your paper. It leads the reader to your Bibliography or Reference List  A Bibliography or Reference List is a list at the end of your paper of all references used within your paper  Name-year format: references are sorted alphabetically by surname of the first author A reference is a specially formatted description of the item from which you obtained your information,

Where possible, you should cite the original source of the information (original article or report), and not a textbook or lab report that cites the article. Ideally, you should examine the original source to verify that it does in fact contain the information you're citing, and to see whether there is additional relevant information.

When to use/cite primary vs. review articles: Review articles are excellent backgrounders. The reference list of the review should direct you to the studies mentioned in the review. In general, your own paper should cite the original study, not the review, if you are stating something that was actually found in that study. It's acceptable to cite the review if the information/statement you're citing is unique to the review itself, based on the review's synthesis of a number of primary studies.

Use Council of Science Editors (CSE) name-year style for your assignments

Note that CSE has 3 different style options: name-year, citation-sequence, and citation-name. Please use name-year for your assignments.

For specific guidance on formatting citations, consult this citation guide: 

Zotero Bib (ZBib) is a web-based citation generator. You can paste a title, URL, PubMed ID or DOI into the search box, choose a citation style, and ZBib will format the reference for you. Note that CSE is not one of the default styles, and you'll need to click the "10,000+ other styles available" on the styles dropdown menu to add it. NOTE: there are multiple CSE styles. The one you want is Council of Science Editors Name-Year (author-date).

Zotero is a more full-featured citation software program that will help you organize the literature you find and cite it correctly. It will format your in-text citations and references according to the style you specify. It is free to download and use.

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