After you have familiarized yourselves with the main terms and rules, let us explain step by step, how to proceed when citing. First, we will focus on practical examples and explain how to paraphrase, how to cite word-for-word, and where to place citations in the text. Next, we will look at some basic steps before the actual creation of a bibliographic reference. Then, on the example of some selected types of documents we will demonstrate how the respective bibliographic reference of the document according to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) citation style was created. We chose this style due to the fact that this is the most commonly used citation style in medicine.
We talk about paraphrasing when you formulate an idea more briefly and simply in your own words if such idea was presented in detail in the source cited. To paraphrase definitely does not mean that you take an original idea and only replace some of the words in it. The result of paraphrasing should be your own original message which summarizes the idea you cite. Below you will find a couple of examples of paraphrasing with commentary, but first let us summarize some basic rules of paraphrasing:
Every paraphrase must include a citation referring to the bibliographic reference so that the original source of information is evident.
Never format a paraphrase differently than other text in your document and always supply it with a citation.
Regardless of its length, always formulate a paraphrase so that it is evident where it starts and ends (see examples below for how to do that).
When paraphrasing, you should be careful to ensure the result is not just a copy of the original text with some stylistic changes, e.g. substituting words with synonyms and similar. Rather than doing that, cite the text word-for-word.
It is more appropriate to place longer citations into a separate paragraph.
In this case, ulike paraphrasing, you cite the original source word for word, i.e. it must be the exact copy of the source. This way of quoting is common mainly in the humanities. Before explaining with actual examples, how to cite word for word, let us summarize some basic rules:
In the event you cite a document in a foreign language (unless the citation style requires otherwise), write the translation of the quotation into the text and place its original in brackets or footnote.
A verbatim quotation must always be embedded into the context so that it is obvious why it was used.
A verbatim citation must be graphically distinguished from the original text. Therefore, it is placed in inverted commas and if the respective rules (of the citation style, on formal text editing, etc.) allow, italics or different font should be used.
Quotations longer than 4-6 lines are commonly marked with a different size or font and are placed in a separate paragraph.
We have already mentioned above that individual citation styles differ which may also be reflected by the position of quotation in the text. In practice you can see that some citation styles contain a text sample to demonstrate where to place citations (e.g. The Chicago Manual of Style, p 678), while others just describe after which usual expressions the citation should be situated (e.g. The ACS Style Guide, p 290). It may sometimes happen – usually when publishing for journals – that instructions for authors do not specify where to place a citation in the text and the author just has to look at previous issues of the journal and emulate that way of citing.
Determining the suitable position for a citation is therefore problematic. However, you can trace some patterns that repeat in this way. We will use the following example to list and demonstrate these patterns:
Already in 1989, the team of James Keck (1989) proved that degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with high molecular weight (VMH PAHs) can be accelerated by adding a nonspecific source of carbon. It was found that natural organic substances stimulate the decomposition of pyrene (Holman et al., 2002) and accelerate the degradation of VMH PAHs in soil contaminated by creosote (Bengtsson and Zerhoun, 2003). Some scientists (Ogunseitan et al., 1991; Ogunseitan and Olson, 1993; Tittle et al., 1995) suggest using sources of carbon that are dissoluble in water and are relevant to the metabolism of VMH PAU, e.g. phthalate and salicylic acid. The team of Prof. Ogunseitan (1991) provides evidence that “salicylic acid added to soil samples which were inoculated with bacteria that degrade naphthalene, evidently expanded the occurrence of the genetic determinants of naphthalene degradators in the community of these bacteria”. This occurs for a period of time that may correspond to a period during which an accelerated degradation can occur. The addition of salicylic acid to soil was also used for the purpose of keeping a population of bacteria innoculated into the soil in an active state (Colbert et al., 1993a, 1993b; Riser-Roberts, 1998).
The sentences highlighted in red exhibit a typical form of citation within the framework of the author-date method – the citation consists of only the year of publishing, because the name of the author precedes it. If you wrote the author in the citation as well, the word would be duplicated, for example: “… the team of James Keck (Keck, 1989) proved…”, which is unnecessary, because the following variant “… the team of James Keck (1989) …” allows readers to identify the cited publication.
This rule usually applies to numeric citations as well (citation-sequence, citation-name, or running notes), but as the example of the paraphrase on page 13 shows, this is not always the case. It is thus necessary when using one of these three citation methods to determine whether the citation style specifies placement of the citation in the text, and if not, whether this cannot be emulated from previous publications.
The preceding rule applies even if the authorship is expressed by means of other than the surname. Such an expression is “some scientists” in the passage highlighted in green: this differs from the preceding situation because it includes multiple publications written by different authors. You can often see even inanimate expressions such as “previous studies”, “earlier research” after which a citation follows. Similarly to the preceding rule, this one also commonly applies for citing according to the author-date method. Just bear in mind that it may be required to place the citation at the end of the paraphrase/verbatim quotation.
If a sentence does not contain the surname of the author or express authorship in any other way (see preceding rule), the citation should be placed at the end of the paraphrase/citation. Note that in the first blue sentence, the citation is placed in the middle of the sentence after the word pyrene and another one at the end of the sentence after the word creosote. The sentence is thus composed of two paraphrases, both of which are equipped with information for readers that states the source of the respective ideas. The second blue sentence presents a paraphrase of a statement (in this case a research method), which has appeared in many publications. Instead of repeating the same idea with a citation of the respective publication, the author simply writes it only once with citations to all the sources.
As follows from the rules above, the position of the citation should tell the reader that the given idea has been drawn from another source. It is indispensable when producing a scholarly text to formulate and structure sentences in such a way that readers can always clearly identify the beginning and ending of an idea that was taken from elsewhere. The examples above together with the notes on previous pages present appropriate approaches for paraphrasing and citing.