Blog on Referencing and citing sources in a research paper

The first reason is the acknowledgment of the original writer. The in-text citations are added to encourage the original writer from whose work you took some help. Another reason for adding the in-text citations is that it makes your research paper trustable. It works as evidence for your work. If you have added a citation, it means the statement you have made is not baseless and holds some strong ground as more work has already be done on it.

There are different types of citation. Previously only a small range of citations was available but with the development, more style for writing an in-text citation has been introduced. The most popular among these styles are APA, MLA, IEEE, Chicago, and Harvard. There are many more styles but these are top on the list. An in-text citation in APA style shows the name of the author and the year in which the article has been written in parenthesis, while the MLA style only reveals the name of the authors. Similarly, IEEE displays only the numbers in square brackets. All of them are used according to personal preferences.

Talking about the reference or reference list, it is displayed at the end of the research paper. This list consists of all the minor details about the in-text citation. As mentioned in the text-citation go for the either name of the author or maybe the year the work has been written or just a number but a reference list mentions everything in great detail.

In the reference list along with the name of the authors and the year of the publishing of the work, the title of the reference is also included. Also, the page numbers are mentioned along with the volume and issue number. All these details help the reader to quickly find the site or the work which has been referenced (in case they want to read it). A reference list is available in different names and styles, they are known as bibliography or work cited.

In earlier days, both the in-text citation and the reference list was added manually. In-text citations were still very easy to write but while writing the reference, much focus was required. This was because a lot of full stops and commas were used in the reference and if one of the marks gets replace, it nullifies the whole citation.

But don't worry this problem has come to ease. There are automatic ways for adding the in-text citation and the reference. All you need to do is place the cursor where you want to add your citation. Go to the option “references” on your Microsoft word menu bar. Choose the design you desire to use. After this, a dialog box will appear. In this dialogue box minimum of six things needs to be filled. The first is the name of the author, then there is the title of the article, the year it was written, the page number, and the volume and issue number. Once you have done filling the blank spaces with detail, you need to press enter to finish your task. After this, your in-text citation will appear in the style you choose. For example, if you had selected the APA style, then only the name of the author and the year will be displayed in parenthesis.

Shifting to the reference list, once you have finished writing your entire research paper, you need to add the page break and move the cursor to the next page. Then you need to go to “references” in the Microsoft word menu bar. There is this option of “bibliography”, select it and you will be given with options of which title you are willing to give it. Select your preference and the list of all the in-text citation which you added in your work will be displayed with full details. In case, you forgot to add an in-text citation or you made some last moment changes in your research work and added a citation for it, you can always change your reference list and make an update in it according to the new alterations.

There is no limitation on the kind of references you use. Your sources can be anything like an e-book, an article, a research paper, or maybe a journal article. All you need to focus is on entering the right details.