LibGuides: CC0006 Basics of Report Writing: Citing Sources

Citations in your report

Why do you need to generate citations?

Provides the authority and foundation to support your arguments and conclusions
Provides credibility to the report
Creates explicit linkages between your research and those that came before you
Credit authors whose ideas you use and avoid plagiarism
Helps readers refer to the sources if they want more information
Creates greater impact on your readers

What do I need to generate citations for?

Idea, theory, illustration or opinion of other people.
Statistics, graphs, drawings, images created by others.
Quotation of actual spoken or written words of other people.
Paraphrase of spoken or written words of other people.

What is a citation?

A citation is a reference to a source from which you have taken the information given in your research report. It identifies for the reader the original source for an idea, information, or text that is referred to in your work.

In the body of a paper, the in-text citation acknowledges the source of information used.
At the end of the research report, the citations are compiled as a reference list.
In-text citation is a shortened version of the full citation of a source in the reference list.

A citation style dictates the format of in-text citations and references, what information needs to be provided and how it is ordered. There are many citation styles, e.g., IEEE citation style, American Chemical Society (ACS), American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA), Turabian, etc.

The box below contains some examples of APA 7th and IEEE style. Check out our Citation Styles Libguide for more resources.

Note: In your presentation slides also you must include citations.

The IEEE style is a numbered style. For a complete citation you would need a numbered indication in the body of the report and an entry in the Reference List. Here are some examples of how IEEE style could look like:

Webpage:

In-text citation:
Energy Market Authority states that consumers installing solar PV should engage a qualified person such as an architect registered with the Board of Architects or a has a valid practising certificate to do it [1].

Reference:
[1] Energy Market Authority. “Solar installation guide.” Accessed: Jul. 5, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.ema.gov.sg/consumer-information/solar/solar-installation-guide

Journal Article:

In-text citation:
Economic incentives can strengthen consumer behavior toward environmental protection [51]. Ongondo and Williams [52] offered money and other rewards to motivate college students to recycle their mobile phones.

Reference:
[51] R. A. Winett and M. S. Neale, "Psychological framework for energy conservation in buildings: Strategies, outcomes, directions," Energy Build., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 101-116, 1979.
[52] F. O. Ongondo, and I. D. Williams, "Mobile phone collection reuse and recycling in the UK," Waste Manage., vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 1307-1315, Jun. 2011, doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2011.01.032.

Images

Citations of figures / images in the paper must be in numerical order. Place it below the figure / image.

In-text citation:

The format is: Fig. #. Caption of image. Adapted from [#].

Fig. 1. Footwear collected from the shorelines of Midway Atoll. Adapted from [2]

Reference:

In the reference list give the details of the source, the webpage from which the image is taken in IEEE citation style.

[2] NOAA Photo Library. “fis01484." Flickr.com. https://www.flickr.com/photos/noaaphotolib/27889266330/in/album-72157670783471385/ (accessed Oct. 3, 2021).

Note: IEEE Style uses abbreviations for the name of journal and month for the references.

In the APA 7th style, for a complete citation you would need an in-text citation in the body of the report and an entry in the Reference List. Here are some examples of how APA 7th style could look like:

Webpage:

In-text citation:
Tobacco smoking is a habit that is prevalent among the residents of Bandung in West Java, Indonesia. Local leaders are under pressure to come up with enforcement policies and initiatives to make the tobacco control law effective (World Health Organization, 2021).

Reference:
World Health Organization. (2021). Bandung: Championing city-level tobacco control. https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/bandung-championing-city-level-tobacco-control

Journal Article:

In-text citation:
Technological solutions, including creating synthetic oils to replace palm oil, are currently very expensive. As a result, Parsons et al. (2020) have proposed that promoting more "sustainable" practices in the palm oil industry may be the most feasible ...

Reference:
Parsons, S., Raikova, S., & Chuck, C. J. (2020). The viability and desirability of replacing palm oil. Nature Sustainability, 3(6), 412-418. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0487-8

Images:

In-text citation:

For in-text citations, input the figure /image number in bold and the caption above the figure / image. Input a note below with the details for example title, author, source and license (if any) as shown below.

Figure 1

Footwear collected from the shorelines of Midway Atoll

Note. From fis01484 [Photograph], by NOAA Photo Library, 2013, Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/noaaphotolib/27889266330/in/album-72157670783471385/). CC BY 2.0.

Reference:

NOAA Photo Library. (2013). fis01484 [Photograph]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/noaaphotolib/27889266330/in/album-72157670783471385/