Bioengineering
Index
Alerts
Articles
Ask a Librarian
ASU Publications
Background Information
Books
Business Information
Career Information
Citation Management
Citing Your Sources
Current Awareness Searching
Designing Posters
Document Delivery Services
Encyclopedias
Facts
Find a Citation
Find a Known Item
Formulas
Getting Started
Gray Literature
Help
Home Page
Industry Information
Industry Standards
Intellectual Property
Interlibrary Loan Services
Jobs
Journal Articles
Keeping Current
Library News
Literature Review
Materials
Medical Devices
New Items in the Libraries
Overviews
Patents
Poster Design
Properties of Materials
Quick Facts
Recent ASU Publications
Research a Topic
RSS Feeds
Standards
Statistics
Saved Searches
Summaries
Trade Information
Technical Reports
Topic Searching
Writing a Report/Paper
Introduction
This page contains four sections:
Components of a Citation
When presenting or referring to the work of others, whether as a direct quote or by paraphrasing, you must provide the appropriate attribution. By citing the specific document, medium, or other form of communication, you indicate who originally made the contribution AND you allow your reader to find that contribution from which s/he may make their own judgment. Failure to provide appropriate attribution is considered plagiarism.
Citations need to be both consistent, so the reader can recognize what the item is (book, journal article, film, government document, etc.), and complete, so that s/he can find it.
Citations should always include these five elements :
- Author
The person, persons or group (corporation, government agency, institution, etc.) that is responsible for the content of the work.
- Title
What the work is called.
- Date of Publication
When the work was made available; depending on the physical format of the material, this could be listed as:- year,
- month and year, or
- day, month and year.
- Source
Where the work comes from. For books, this would be the publisher; for journal articles, this would be the title of the journal, for government documents, the agency name, for technical reports, the corporation or agency, etc.
- Location
Any information that's needed to find the work within/from the source; this varies with format. For books the location would the city of the publisher; for journal articles it would be the volume, issue and pages; for items only published online this could be an URL or a DOI (digital object identifier).
How these elements are ordered in the citation and what punctuation, spacing, and font style (italics, bold) are used depends on the citation style you are asked to use.
Examples
The following citations use the APA (American Psychological Association) style to show the components:
- Shepherd, R., Frost, J. D. (1995). Failures in civil engineering: Structural, foundation, and geoenvironmental case studies. New York: American Society of Civil Engineers
This citation is for a book and contains the following information:- Authors: R. Shepherd and J.D. Frost
- Title: Failures in civil engineering: structural, foundation, and geoenvironmental case studies
- Date of Publication: 1995
- Source: American Society of Civil Engineers
- Location: New York
- Plaut, R. H. (2008). Snap Loads and Torsional Oscillations of the Original Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Journal of Sound and Vibration, 309(3), 613-636. doi: 10.1016/j.jsv.2007.07.057
This citation is for a journal article and contains the following information:- Author: R.H. Plaut
- Title: Snap loads and torsional oscillations of the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge
- Date of Publication: 2008
- Source: Journal of Sound and Vibration
- Location: Volume 309, issue 3, pages 613 to 636; doi: 10.1016/j.jsv.2007.07.057
The following are the same two examples from above but this time cited in IEEE Style. Still the same information but note the differences in the order of the components, the punctuation used in between components and in some cases the different way the component is written.
- R. Shepherd and J. D. Frost, Failures in civil engineering: Structural, foundation, and geoenvironmental case studies. New York, NY, USA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 1995.
- R. H. Plaut, "Snap Loads and Torsional Oscillations of the Original Tacoma Narrows Bridge." J. Sound Vib., vol. 309, no. 3, pp. 613-636, Mar. 2008.
Citation Style Guides for Bioengineering
General Style Guides
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by American Psychological Association Staff
Call number: BF76.7 .P83 2010 (All ASU Libraries except Thunderbird)Publication date: 2009Although written for psychology, this style adapts well for most subjects including engineering. In addition to providing guidance on grammar, the mechanics of writing, and APA style, this manual offers an authoritative reference and citation system.
Style Guides for Medicine
Citing Medicine by Karen Patrias; Dan Wendling
Call number: OnlinePublication date: 2007-Provides assistance to authors in compiling lists of references for their publications, to editors in revising such lists, to publishers in setting reference standards for their authors and editors, and to librarians and others in formatting bibliographic citations. Frequently called "Vancouver Style"AMA Manual of Style by Cheryl Iverson (Editor); Stacy Christiansen (Editor); Annette Flanagin (Editor); JAMA and Archives Journals Staff (Editor)
Call number: R119 .A533 2007 (Downtown, Polytech, Science & West)Publication date: 2007This 10th edition has expanded its electronic guidelines ... Ethical and legal issues receive increased attention, with detailed guidelines on authorship, conflicts of interest, scientific misconduct, intellectual property, and the protection of individuals' rights in scientific research and publication.
Journal Publisher Style Guides and Manuals
Engineering does not have an overall preferred style as other subject areas do, such as medicine and psychology. Instead, instructors/students may use guidelines posted by specific journals within an engineering sub-discipline. Although the terms "Style Guide" or "Style Manual" may be used, many times this information is on the journal's website under a section labeled "Instructions for Authors". These instruction sections usually contain formatting details and how to cite references.
A selection of biomedical journal style guides and author instructions are listed below. If your favorite journal is not listed, use the ASU Library's Journal Lookup List to go to your journal's website and browse the site to find either a "style guide" or "instructions for authors" section.
- Annals of Biomedical Engineering
In the right-hand column, click on "Instructions for Authors" and a box will display in the left-hand column.
- Annual Reviews of Biomedical Engineering: Author Handbook (pdf)
- Biomaterials: Author Information Pack (pdf)
- Biomedical Materials: Author Guidelines
Used by most of the Institute of Physics (IOP) journals.
- IEEE Style Manual (pdf)
Used by most of the "IEEE Transactions" journals.
- Journal of Neuroscience: Organization of the Manuscript: References