Standing on the shoulders of the giant: How to do my citation efficiently?
Doing citation work is every student’s nightmare. Apparently, it is not difficult to cite a work and there are many citation guidelines (or automatic machines!) for us to follow. However, many of us may share the same experience that we can hardly match our works with the sources, or even we might forget which sources we used.
When the deadline is approaching, organising our in-text citation and bibliography would definitely ‘drive us crazy’ because of the components and format. There are some strategies to make your reference list fast and ease your life when you are in a rush!
Decide your citation styles
Some students may find it confusing to identify which styles of citation should be used. Generally speaking, different academic disciplines require different styles of citation.
– APA Style: Psychology, Social Sciences
– MLA Style: English, Foreign Languages, Humanities
– Chicago Manual of Style: History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Humanities
– CSE / CBE Style: Natural Sciences, Applied Sciences
You may consult your teacher for the citation requirements. Most importantly, your citation style has to be consistent and should not be switched from one to another throughout the whole essay or research paper.
Useful manual guides for citation
How to do the citation efficiently?
Put down brief information of the work cited
Open a separate document to record the reference used. You may put down some simple information of your source first, such as title, author, weblink, year, and the most crucial is the page number (if any). It is not necessary to complete the whole citation at the beginning as some of the sources may not be used and it takes time to format the list.
You may also use some automatic citation software to generate the work cited but you have to make sure it contains all the information you need.
After finishing the research paper or essay, you may finalise the format of your reference list. As you have done the basic information of your work cited, it is profound to rearrange their order and format them by following the citation manual guide as the citation styles might be slightly different from each other.
Do the in-text citation immediately
While putting down the brief information of the work cited in the bibliography, in-text citation needs a more accurate reference. According to the citation style applied, putting down the relevant information like the author and page number (or year) can eliminate unnecessary errors in your citation and prevent unmatching of the text and source.
Don’t waste your free time
Finishing the bibliography at once sounds boring and annoying especially when time is tight. It is a progressive work so remember to do it from time to time. Utilising the time when you are going back to school or on the way home, then you will find doing citation work is just a piece of cake.