APSC 101 - Information Literacy Module

In this section, you will learn to:

• Determine the parts of a citation (author/corporate author, article title, journal, volume, year, pages, etc.) and how to differentiate between a book, journal, or conference paper reference.
• Check the quality and accuracy of references downloaded from online sources or manually entered into your citation manager.

Citing (aka referencing) sources is an integral aspect of academic and professional writing. It is also essential to maintaining the academic integrity of your work. Failing to properly cite a source is serious breach of professional and academic integrity standards. This is commonly known as plagiarizing, or taking credit for another person's work or ideas.

Publishers and organizations usually require authors to use a specific citation style when citing sources. There are many citation styles, some of which you have used before. Common styles include APA, Chicago, and IEEE. APA is an author-date style. In APA, the name of the author and year of the publication are inserted in the text enclosed in parentheses. (Smith & Smith, 2018) IEEE is a numerical style. A number representing the cited source is placed in brackets at the appropriate point. [1] 

Why Cite?

There are many reasons why we cite:

1. Acknowledge the works and ideas of others (academic integrity).
2. Demonstrate professionalism (professional integrity).
3. Direct readers to sources for more information.

What to Cite

You must cite all sources of information, even informal sources such as personal e-mails, used in your project. These include:

1. Direct quotations.
2. Paraphrased ideas. 
3. Published materials: books, articles, websites, textbooks, reports, standards, patents, manuals, YouTube videos, and so on.
4. Unpublished materials: e-mails, interviews, lectures, slides, data sets, an so on. 
5. Facts and data (excluding common facts).
6. Images, tables, and charts.

How to Cite

APSC 101/193 uses the IEEE citation style, which is common in engineering publications. See the links at the bottom for more information and examples. Below is an example of in-text citation.

"The belated recognition of worldwide plastic and in particular microplastic contamination of the home and the environment raises many more questions than we have answers for. Leaving aside the questions of hazard, it is important to quantify the daily exposure to humans and wildlife. Microplastics are generally considered to be plastic particles smaller than 5 mm but larger than 1 μm, although a standard definition has yet to be agreed. While the biodegradation of many plastic polymers is seen as negligible, [1] they are liable to abiotic decomposition, with the rate being influenced by light and temperature as well as mechanical abrasion. [2−4] Thus, the major source of microplastic particles is considered to be the disintegration of consumer products including packaging and textiles. [5−7] Another challenge is particles released from vehicle tyres and painted road surfaces, [8,9] but these are much more difficult to enumerate as microplastic particles. [10,11]"