LITERATURE CITATION VS. LITERATURE REFERENCE -- WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

When writing a research paper, you must always acknowledge any works or ideas of others that have influenced your experiment, conclusions, or interpretation of the data. This is done by including a citation in the body of the manuscript and its corresponding literature reference in the Literature Cited section of the paper.

Example

• The following paragraph is from the Introduction of a research manuscript. Note the four literature citations (highlighted in red):

  
  

  Although the water economies of a number of species of amphibians have been studied, the majority of these investigations have been interspecific in nature (Smith et al. 1998). Such studies have often sought to elucidate adaptive differences among species (Schmid 1965, Ralin and Rogers 1972, Gillis 1979). Although developmental stages of amphibians often occupy different habitats, corresponding changes in ecophysiological parameters have been relatively unstudied. 
   

• The literature references corresponding to these four citations were listed in the Literature Cited section of the same manuscript:
   

  Gillis, R. 1979. Adaptive differences in the water economies of two species of leopard frogs from eastern Colorado. Journal

        of Herpetology 13:445-450.

   

  Ralin, D.B. and J.S. Rogers. 1972. Aspects of tolerance to desiccation in Acris crepitans and Pseudacris streckeri. Copeia 1972:

        519-525.

   

  Schmid, W.D. 1965. Some aspects of the water economies of nine species of amphibians. Ecology 46:261-269.

   

  Smith, J.W., D. Pettus and D.W. Hoppe. 1998. One hundred years of amphibian water economy studies: what have we learned?

       American Zoologist 66:124-198.
   

TWO CITATION CONVENTIONS -- "NAME-YEAR" VS. "CITATION SEQUENCE" CONVENTIONS

The preceding example illustrates the "name-year" citation convention used by many scientific journals. A second convention that is also commonly used is called the "citation sequence" convention, illustrated below. Rather than list the author and year, citations are numbered in the order in which they first appear in the manuscript:

• The same paragraph as above -- note the four citations (see highlighted numbers):
  

   

  Although the water economies of a number of species of amphibians have been studied, the majority of these investigations have been interspecific in nature (1). Such studies have often sought to elucidate adaptive differences among species (2,3,4). Although developmental stages of amphibians often occupy different habitats, corresponding changes in ecophysiological parameters have been relatively unstudied. 

   

• The literature references in the Literature Cited section would be written as follows:

  
  

  (1) Smith, J.W., D. Pettus and D.W. Hoppe. 1998. One hundred years of amphibian water economy studies: what have we learned?

        American Zoologist 66:124-198.

   

  (2) Schmid, W.D. 1965. Some aspects of the water economies of nine species of amphibians. Ecology 46:261-269.

   

  (3) Ralin, D.B. and J.S. Rogers. 1972. Aspects of tolerance to desiccation in Acris crepitans and Pseudacris streckeri. Copeia

       1972:519-525.

   

  (4) Gillis, R. 1979. Adaptive differences in the water economies of two species of leopard frogs from eastern Colorado. Journal of

        Herpetology 13:445-450.

Note: Other science journals may use other citation/literature reference formats.
 

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