Referencing
Referencing is a formal process of acknowledging all sources of information or work from other authors that you used when creating any original material.
Referencing consists of two parts: a citation and a reference. The citation is a note, a number, or an identifier of the source, within your work’s text that acknowledges other authors’ works in the relevant section. The reference expands on the citation and encompasses the source details that inform its location.
Why is referencing important?
Referencing is essential in producing your original work or research. It gives the readers supporting evidence of how widely you reviewed the topic and how you support your arguments. It also provides the location of the sources you mentioned in your work; as a result, you help fellow researchers locate the cited references easily. Importantly, it helps avoid plagiarism by acknowledging other authors’ work and ideas.
What do you need to write a reference?
To add a reference, you need the bibliographic information of the source. Bibliographic information is the individual information used to describe and find a particular work, such as a book, journal article, or internet source. A reference should have four essential elements of bibliographic information: 1) the author or group of authors who created the work; 2) the year of publication; 3) title; and 4) where it was published. There are several ways of presenting the bibliographic information, known as “referencing style.”
Reference style
There is a wide range of reference styles commonly used. Each style has its unique formatting guidelines. The selected style will depend on the requirements of a particular publication, such as books, magazines, or journal articles, to name a few. Also, the in-text citation will vary depending on the referencing style. The most common styles with simple examples for referencing are listed below.
| Style | Example |
|---|---|
| APA (American Psychological Association) | Singer, J. (1999, September). Using the American Psychological Association (APA) style guidelines to report experimental results. In Workshop on Empirical Studies in Software Engineering (WSESE 1999) (pp. 71-75). |
| IEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) | [1] M. Howells et al., “OSeMOSYS: The Open Source Energy Modeling System,” Energy Policy, vol. 39, no. 10, pp. 5850–5870, Oct. 2011, doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2011.06.033. |
| Harvard | Welsch, M., Howells, M., Bazilian, M., DeCarolis, J.F., Hermann, S. and Rogner, H.H. (2012). Modelling elements of Smart Grids – Enhancing the OSeMOSYS (Open Source Energy Modelling System) code. Energy, 46(1), pp.337–350. |
| Vancouver | Dreier D, Howells M. OSeMOSYS-PuLP: A Stochastic Modeling Framework for Long-Term Energy Systems Modeling. Energies. 2019 Jan;12(7):1382. |
| Oxford | Gardumi, F., M. Welsch, M. Howells and E. Colombo, 'Representation of Balancing Options for Variable Renewables in Long-Term Energy System Models: An Application to OSeMOSYS', Energies, 12/12 (2019), < doi:10.3390/en12122366 > accessed 14 March 2022, 2366. |
Reference for an image
Similar to journal articles and other types of publications that require referencing, images and figures need a reference to acknowledge the author. Each style has its unique formatting guidelines. Commonly, in-text citations for images should include the author and date. A reference should include author, date, title, format, publisher, and URL.
The license in an image states whether attribution is required. This means acknowledging the original author. This is the case for images under Creative Commons licenses. These licenses indicate what you are allowed to do; for example, CC BY 4.0 states that you must give attribution. Under such a license, you can share and adapt the material. The figure below shows an example of how to reference or give credit. Notice, in the caption, the title, author, and license have particular links to locate the original work, the author’s website/profile or otherwise, and license.
“Energy demand” by Heredia Roberto is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Reference software and dataset
Often dataset and software are other sources and tools that have contributed to the research. As such, citing dataset and software help to support the reproducibility of your research, and it allows tracking the reuse of data and software. By referencing, you give credit and attribution to those who provided the dataset or developed software or apps.
Style manuals can provide instructions regarding citations and references of software and data. Dataset providers, producers, and software developers can provide a recommended reference or supply an example (see examples 4 and 5).
Referencing software is an evolving area (Jackson, n.d.). A general guideline is that you should include similar components as any other reference; see the examples below. Cite and reference any software used and have contributed to your research. It is unnecessary to reference software used daily, such as Microsoft Office; instead, the software that played a significant role in your research.
General bibliographic information
Author/producer, date of publication/release year, dataset title, version, [subset used], publisher and/or distributor, access date, data locator/identifier(DOI or URL)
Commonly, citing and referencing software and the associated journal paper are standard practices. However, citing only the paper raise problems. One is that software can have versions or releases happening at different timescales. Second, sometimes there is no associated paper with the software; for example, in packages or libraries. A good practice is to cite and reference the specific software version and the associate paper. Examples for referencing software and dataset are listed below.
| Output | Example |
|---|---|
| dataset | Knutti, Reto (2014). IPCC Working Group I AR5 snapshot: The past1000 experiment. World Data Center for Climate (WDCC) at DKRZ. https://doi.org/10.1594/WDCC/ETHpk |
| dataset | Jay H. Lawrimore, Matthew J. Menne, Byron E. Gleason, Claude N. Williams, David B. Wuertz, Russell S. Vose, and Jared Rennie (2011): Global Historical Climatology Network - Monthly (GHCN-M), Version 3, [Indicate subset used]. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. https://doi.org/10.7289/V57P8W90 [access date]. |
| dataset | Pappis, Ioannis, Sridharan, Vignesh, Usher, Will, & Howells, Mark. (2019). JRC-TEMBA - African decarbonisation pathways (v0.1.3) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3521841 |
| software | Mark Howells, Manuel Welsch, Constantinos Taliotis, Adrian Lefvert, Igor Tatarewicz, Tom Alfstad, Nawfal Saadi, Francesco Gardumi, Vignesh Sridharan, Agnese Beltramo, Nandi Moksnes, Taco Niet, Abhishek Shivakumar, Roberto Heredia Fonseca, Will Usher, & Christoph Muschner. (2021). OSeMOSYS/OSeMOSYS_GNU_MathProg: OSeMOSYS v0.8.1 (v0.8.1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5255610 |
| software | R Core Team (2022). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org/ |
Reference Management Software
Nowadays, adding and managing citations and references has become more practical by using automatic referencing management software. These tools can 1) save you time when adding and managing references, a process that can be time-consuming, and 2) allow you to format the references correctly according to a specific style. Open tools exist in the pool of reference management software, and others require a commercial license. Selecting the programs/tools depends on your specific needs or can be influenced by choices adopted in your work team. Different management software is listed below.
EndNote is a commercial software.
Zotero is free and open-source.
Mendeley is web-based with a free local client.
User manual (link)
The scientific manuscrippt tool LateX has its own reference management software called BibTex/Biber/BibLateX