When should you cite a paper?

3 month thesis by James Hayton has a free guide that you can sign up to receive called “The Short Guide to Writing Fast.” Inside I found this concise quote about when you should cite a paper (p. 20): You should only cite a paper… • To support one of your arguments • To provide … read more

Check your reference list!

A recent paper published in Scientometrics by Robert Lopresti looks at the accuracy of citations in the five leading environmental science journals. Lopresti found that 24.4% of the references in the reference list had errors in them. Almost half of the errors were in the authors names. Almost 30% of the errors were in the … read more

Reference list style guides

As an author, creating and double-checking reference lists in your manuscript are a hassle. Chances are if you make a mistake, a reader will go looking for that source and be stymied by a wrong year or incorrect page number. On top of the problems of accuracy, different journals require different formats for their reference … read more