Usage of References and Its Management in Research

Citation Vs. Reference Vs. Bibliography

The words Citation, Reference, and Bibliography are used as synonyms in practical life and also in managing references through software. But, there is a slight difference among them in research methodology.

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  Citation: A citation is the specific mention of a source in the main body of manuscript. It usually includes the name of the author and year of publication or citation number. Sometimes people may call it ‘in-text citation’. The following are few examples for in-text citation (“what is citation”, 2016):

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    APA format example: The sky is blue (Cottrell, 2013).

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    ACS format example: The sky is blue.¹

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    IEEE format example: The sky is blue [1].

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  Reference: A Reference usually mentions at the end of a manuscript (essay or research report) and it should contain only the works cited within the running text of that manuscript. The ‘References’ in a research are, only the cited sources in that particular research.

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  Bibliography: A bibliography is any list of references at the end of a manuscript (essay or research report), whether cited or not. It includes both the sources used by a researcher that cited at work and also additional list of sources, he/she consulted for that work (“References Vs Bibliography”, 2016).

Important Of References In Research

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  References clearly distinguish a researcher ideas and arguments from existing research.

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  References give the list of consulted sources by a researcher and it enable the reader to refer the original source of information.

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  References give validation, support and strength to the ideas of present research.

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  References shows the scope and depth of a research work.

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  References acknowledge the works of original contributors.

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  References avoid the plagiarism.

Sources Of References

Basically, there are three different kinds of information sources like primary, secondary and tertiary which have to be referred. But, a researcher has to decide that the usefulness, appropriateness to their work and authentication of that source. It is very important characteristic before refer a source in research.