How to
Find
Info

Interpreting citations handout

• Research topic
• Search concept
• Search statement
• Search materials
• Search relevance
• Locate items
• Use References
• Evaluate Sources
• Cite Sources
• Search strategy

Search
LINC now!

Understanding Citations

When you have been given a reading list or have compiled a list of citations from indexes, books or other readings, it is essential that you interpret them correctly. Different citation styles may be used in the references.

You have to establish whether your references are for books, book chapters, conference papers or journal articles, as the information that makes up the citation for each of them is different.

Here are some sample citations:

Books

A typical citation of a book gives the book's authors or editors, publication year, title, edition, and publisher.

Gerrig, Richard J., and Philip G. Zimbardo. 2002. Psychology and life, 16th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

To check if the book is available in NUS Libraries, use the Title or Author option in LINC. Check How to search LINC if you need help. Take note of the location and call number (at the bottom spine of the book or on the bottom left corner on the cover page). The call number is essential to retrieving the book from the shelf.

Book Chapters

Book chapters are normally cited first by the authors and title of the chapters respectively, followed by the information on the book in which they are published.

Chin, Anthony, and Jose Tongzon. 1998. Maintaining Singapore as a major shipping and air transport hub. In Competitiveness of the Singapore economy: A strategic perspective, ed. Toh Mun Heng and Tan Tong Yam, 83-114. Singapore: Singapore University Press.

To check if the book chapter is available in NUS Libraries, use the Title or Author option in LINC to check the BOOK title or author (Toh, Mun Heng). Check How to search LINC if you need help.

Conference Papers

Like book chapters, conference papers are cited first by the authors and title of the papers respectively, followed by the information on the conference proceedings in which they are published.

Joseph, T. 1999. A messaging-based architecture for enterprise application integration. In 15th International Conference on Data Engineering: proceedings: March 23-26, 1999, Sydney, Australia, ed. Masuru Kitsuregawa, et al, 62-63. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society.

To check if the conference paper is available in NUS Libraries, use the Title or Author option in LINC to check the CONFERENCE title or author (Kitsuregawa, M) or conference name (International Conference on Data Engineering). Check How to search LINC if you need help.

Journal Articles

Journal articles are usually cited in the following sequence: authors, year, article title, journal title, volume/issue number and page number.

Wong, Tai Chee. 1998. Land transport policy and land-use planning in Singapore. Australian Planner 35 (1): 44-48.

Driver, B.K. The Lie bracket of adapted vector fields on Wiener spaces. Appl Math Optim 39 (1999), no.2, 179-210.

To check if the journal article is available in NUS Libraries, use the Title option in LINC to check the JOURNAL title (Australian Planner) NOT the title of the article.

If the journal title is abbreviated, you may need to use lists of journal abbreviations to help you find out the full title. Check How to search LINC if you need help.

Op cit and Ibid

Occasionally you may come across op cit or ibid in your reading list, the footnotes or the bibliography of a book or article. Note that these are not the titles of books, but rather special terms in Latin used to avoid repetition of previously mentioned references.

Op cit is the abbreviation of opus citatum which means the work is already cited.

Ibid is the abbreviation of ibidem which means in the same book, chapter, etc.

An extract from a book below is given to illustrate the use of ibid and op cit.

By the early 1870s, anti-Chinese feeling had reached explosive proportions. In October 1871 a riot in Los Angeles claimed about nineteen Chinese lives.25 More seriously, throughout the decade of the 1870s, sporadic anti-Chinese incidents had been transformed into an organised political movement. Against this background was the increase in the 1860s of white immigrants from Europe, particularly from Ireland, into California. By 1870 the Irish alone constituted one-fourth of the 210,000 foreign-born persons in the state.26 As more and more Irishmen entered the labour market, they felt that their employment opportunities were jeopardised by Chinese immigrants, and as the Chinese were prepared to take on jobs of longer hours for less wages, their bargaining power with employers was greatly reduced. To many Irish workers, the Chinese were a docile tool of the "greedy capitalists", and the cause of their misery.27 23 See Gunther Barth, Bitter Strength: A History of the Chinese in the United States, 1850-1870 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), p. 131. 24 The queue was orginally imposed on Han Chinese by the Manchu conquerors after 1644, since then many Chinese regarded queues as an inseparate part of their bodies and took pride in it. Many overseas Chinese would be offended if their queues were pulled by foreigners. See Lau Pau, 3/12/1890, p. 1. 25 Gunther Barth, op. cit., p. 144. 26 M.R. Coolidge, Chinese Immigration, p. 64. 27 Ibid., p. 116.

Extracted from: Yen Ching-Hwang. 1985. Coolies and Mandarins: China's protection of overseas Chinese during the late Ch'ing period (1851-1911). Singapore: Singapore University Press, p. 211.

Bibliography

Bosworth, David P. 1992. Citing your references: a guide for authors of journal articles and students writing theses or dissertations. Thirsk: Underhill.
LB2369 Bos (CL Reference 8)

University of Chicago Press. 2003. The Chicago manual of style, 15th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Z253 Chi (CL Books, CL Reference 8, HL Reference, SC Reference 9, MD Reference 9)

Gash, Sarah. 2000. "Writing references". In Effective literature searching for research, 105-119. 2nd ed. Aldershot: Gower.
Z710 Gas (CL & SC Books)

Gibaldi, Joseph. 2003. MLA handbook for writers of research papers, 6th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America.
LB2369 Gib 2003 (CL Reference 8)

Joseph, Nancy L. 1999. Research writing using traditional electronic sources. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
LB2369 Jos (CL Books)

Li, Xia & Nancy B. Crane. 1996. Electronic styles : a guide to citing electronic information. Medford, NJ: Information Today.
PN171 Dat.L (CL Reference 8)

Library & Technology Services. 2002. Footnote and Citation Style Guide. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Libraries. <http://www.lehigh.edu/lts/lib/footnote/footnote.html>

Lipson, Charles. 2006. Cite right/a quick guide to citation styles--MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and more Charles Lipson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
PN171 Foo.Li 2006 (CL Books)

Radford, Marie L., Susan B. Barnes, and Linda R. Barr. 2002. Web research: selecting, evaluating, and citing. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.
ZA4228 Rad 2002 (CL Books)

Turabian, Kate L. 1996. A manual for writers of term papers, theses, and dissertations, 6th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
LB2369 Tur (CL Reference 8, CL/HSSML/MU RBR, CL/LW/SC/MD Books)