Citation techniques and styles

In academic texts, references are used to show from where information has been collected and to guide the reader to further reading.

There are three main reasons for referencing:

to show which previous works your own work is drawing on
to distinguish your own thoughts from those of others and to avoid suspicions of plagiarism
to enable the reader to check out your sources or to delve deeper into the subject

Different academic disciplines have developed their own ways of writing references. Examples of reference styles are Harvard, Oxford, APA, IEEE and Vancouver. Your supervisor should be able to tell you which is the most common and desirable style within your discipline.

Reference styles

Here is a selection of guides to the most commonly used reference styles:

APA

APA Style References (American Psychological Association)
Reference guide for APA 7 (Karolinska Institute Library)
Reference guide for APA 7th edition (Lund University)

Harvard

Harvard - writing a reference list (Umeå University Library)

IEEE

IEEE Reference Guide (IEEE Publishing Operations)

Oxford

Deakin guide to Oxford (Deakin University)

Vancouver

Reference guide Vancouver (Karolinska Institute Library)
Vancouver 2022 - Getting started (Monash University)

Reference management software

In order to simplify the handling of references and reference lists, there are so called reference managers. EndNote and Zotero are two examples.

With a reference management software, you can:

Import references and PDFs to the reference manager from search tools and databases
Create a searchable database with your references
Insert references into MS Word documents
Create a references list in your text

LiU has an agreement that allows access to EndNote Desktop for LiU students and employees. Zotero is a free software with open source code.

As a LiU student or employee, you are welcome to sign up for workshops in Zotero and EndNote that the Library regularly offers online.

More information about reference management software and how you can access them is available at Liunet Student and Liunet Employee (sign-in with LiU-ID required).

Plagiarism and Copyright

In the academic world it is essential to have a grasp of issues pertaining to plagiarism and copyright. Here we give you the basics.

6 different publications, including articles, working papers and a dissertation.

Scholarly publications

Which types of publications researchers use may vary from discipline to discipline. Here you can find out about the most common forms of scholarly publications, such as articles, dissertations and working papers.

Citation technique and styles

Reference styles