Citation Guide Cliches Commas
Introductions Non-sexist Writing Guide Passive Voice
Peer Editing Avoid Plagiarism Proofreading
Prospectus Punctuation Quotations



See: Colby's Plagiarism Policy

When are references needed?

    You need to cite a reference for specific information that has been obtained by other people. In other words, you need to give credit where credit is due. There would be no need to cite a reference for a statement like "The sky is blue"; everybody knows that. But if a statement like "The average November rainfall for the past 40 years is 3.4 inches" gives specific information that someone has researched. They should be given credit with a bibliographic reference.

    In the text, pertinent references may be cited in two ways, depending on your sentence structure:

Jones (1987) showed that Maine bogs are highly productive.


Maine bogs are highly productive (Jones, 1987).

    Sometimes, you may have several citations for one statement; if so, the authors should be cited in chronological order. For example:

Maine bogs are highly productive (Jones, 1987; Smith, 1988; Williams, 1990).

    If a cited work has two authors, both should be given. For example: Hutchinson and Temple (1987) showed .... If there are three or more authors list only the first and the abbreviation et al. (Latin abbreviation for et alterius (and others)). For example:

Leatherleaf flowers in April (Green et al., 1956).

    You may also have information which is obtained in a personal letter, from a telephone call or from an interview. These are cited as personal communications. As an example:

Maine bogs are highly productive (Jones, pers. comm.).

    No corresponding entry is made in the Bibliography, but rather in the appendix (see below).

Citation of references in the Bibliography

    The bibliography is arranged alphabetically by author. If there are several works by the same author, those works are arranged chronologically with the oldest listed first.

    Each citation should be formatted with a hanging indent. That is, the first line of the reference should be at the left margin of your document and all additional lines should be indented 0.5 inches (one tab stop for the standard format). You can format a reference as a hanging indent by either moving the icons in the ruler bar (first item under Format menu) or by pressing Command-Shift-t.

    We will adopt the following bibliographic styles for the class report:

Journal article with one author.

Thomas, G.P. 1983. The effect of gravel mining on water quality. J. Hydrol. Res. 7: 45-56.

Journal article with several authors.

Thomas, G.P., T.B. Ladd, F.S. Miller, and J. Adams. 1987. The population dynamics of Sphagnum. Amer. J. Bot. 6: 56-76.

Book citation:

Charles, T.G. and G.E. Hutchings. 1965. The fauna of Minnesota bogs. W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Chapter or article in an edited volume:

Turner, B.R. 1977. Reproductive ecology of Black Ducks. Pages 145-178 in S.R. Lehman and J.T. Jenkins, editors. The ecology of North American waterfowl. Harvard University Press, Harvard, Massachusetts, USA.

Government document:

Hays, R.L., C. Summers, and W. Seitz. 1981. Estimating wildlife habitat variables. U.S.D.I. Fish and Wildlife Service. FWS/OBS-81/47. 111 pages.


    The abbreviations for journals should be those given in the CBE

(Council of Biological Editors) Manual of Style which is available in the Science library.

Citation of Personal Communications

    A list of the names and addresses of all people who are cited in pers. comm. references in the text will be given in an Appendix. As with the references above, we will use the hanging indent format. Individuals should be listed last name first and should be ordered alphabetically.

Stockwell, Sally. Maine Audubon Society, U.S. Route 118, Falmouth, ME 04105.

    Finally, different professors and departments often require different types of references (endnotes, footnotes, in-paragraph notes), so it's always a good idea to check with your professor before writing your paper.