The Principles of Biomedical Scientific Writing: Citation

Abstract

Citation, the act of properly referring to others' ideas, thoughts, or concepts, is a common and critical practice in scientific writing. Citations are used to give credit to own work, to support an argument, to acknowledge others' work, to distinguish other authors' ideas from one's work, and to direct readers to sources of information. A good citation adds to the scientific prestige of the paper and makes it more valuable to the reader. The citation has three basic elements: quoting from others, an in-text reference to the source, and bibliographic details of the source. Beyond technical skills, the citation needs an in-depth knowledge of the field and should follow basic rules, including the selection of relevant and valid sources, stating information/facts from others' work, and referring to others' work accurately and ethically. Several systems and styles are used to cite scientific sources; however, the most commonly used systems in medical sciences are 'author-date' systems (e.g., Harvard system) and numerical systems (e.g., Vancouver system). Here, we discuss how to make an accurate, complete, and ethical citation, and provide simple and practical guides to organize references in a scientific medical paper.

Citing literature

“…Information sources included in the text of a publication are cited in three ways: by quoting, paraphrasing or summarizing. Quoting is using original parts of other authors' texts (more than six consecutive words, copied correctly, put in quotation marks, where each word and punctuation mark must be exactly the same as in the original work) [5]. Paraphrasing is conveying ideas or parts of another author's text in the form of one's own words.…”

“…The Harvard System makes it easy to add or remove references from the text of the paper and from the references list at the end of the paper. However, this system has two flaws -it is more difficult to find the part of the text where a particular reference from the References section has been cited; also, the process of citing within the text of the paper is more difficult, especially when a larger number of references needs to be cited [5,8].…”

“…U spisku literature, reference se navode abecednim redosledom prema prezimenu prvog autora [9]. Harvardski sistem citiranja literature omogućava lako ubacivanje ili izbacivanje literature iz teksta rada, ali on ima dva nedostatka: teško pronalaženje onog dela unutar glavnog teksta koji se odnosi na citirani rad u poglavlju Literatura i teže navođenje referenci u samom tekstu rada, naročito kada treba navesti veliki broj referenci [5,8].…”

“…Greške u citiranju uključuju elemente podataka na koje se članak poziva [13] a greške u navođenju smatraju se ozbiljnijim i definisane su kao citati u kojima je navedeni članak u suprotnosti, ne potkrepljuje ili nije povezan sa radom u kojem je citiran [14]. Greške u vezi sa referencama vode do kruženja lažnih "prihvaćenih činjenica" u naučnoj literaturi, koje je teško ispraviti [5]. Korišćenje softvera za upravljanje referencama može pomoći u smanje-…”

“…Izvori informacija uključenih u tekst publikacije navode se na tri načina: navođenjem citata, parafraziranjem ili sumiranjem. Navođenje citata podrazumeva korišćenje originalnih delova teksta drugih autora (više od šest uzastopnih reči, tačno kopirane, stavljene pod navodnicima, gde svaka reč i interpunkcijski znak treba da budu potpuno isti kao u originalnom radu) [5]. Parafraziranje je prenošenje ideja ili delova teksta drugih autora svojim rečima.…”