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Research

“Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought”

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

 

Links

Interpreting Citations

Finding and Reading Citations

Evaluating Information on the Web

Citation Styles

 

 
In all types of scholarly and research writing it is necessary to document the source works that underpin particular concepts, positions, propositions and arguments with citations. These citations serve a number of purposes:
Help readers identify and relocate the source work.
 
Readers often want to relocate a work you have cited, either to verify the information, or to learn more about issues and topics addressed by the work. It is important that readers should be able to relocate your source works easily and efficiently from the information included in your citations (see the “Citation Structure” topic on the following page for details), in the sources available to them - which may or may not be the same as the sources available to you .
Provide evidence that the position is well-researched.
 
Scholarly writing is grounded in prior research. Citations allow you to demonstrate that your position or argument is thoroughly researched and that you have referenced, or addressed, the critical authorities relevant to the issues.
Give credit to the author of an original concept or theory presented.
 
Giving proper attribution to those whose thoughts, words, and ideas you use is an important concept in scholarly writing. For these reasons, it is important to adopt habits of collecting the bibliographic information on source works necessary for correct citations in an organized and thorough manner.

 

Citation and LegalCitation are copyrighted works owned and published by Oberon Development, Ltd.

 

Any words, ideas or images that you do not create yourself must be properly credited if you use them in your work. Why? Because you are using someone else's intellectual property.

Citing your information sources acknowledges the origin of your information, and it lends credibility to your work by showing evidence of your research. It demonstrates the authenticity of your information and enables your readers to locate your information sources, should they want to. This includes all types of information sources that you may use, including:

  • Books
  • Articles (from print sources or from online article databases)
  • Interviews
  • E-mail or any other correspondence
  • Web pages
  • Government documents
  • Non-print media (videotapes, audiotapes, pictures and images)
  • Software or any digital formats

Whenever you use someone else's intellectual or creative "property," you need to provide a proper citation for your source, in order (1) to give credit to the author or creator and (2) to enable your reader to locate the sources you cite.

A citation is a reference to the source of an idea, information or image. A citation typically includes enough identifying information, such as the author, title, and publication format, for a reader to be able to access the original source.

The ability to interpret citations is a fundamental research skill!

http://www.kyvl.org/html/tutorial/research/citesource.shtml