References in Scientific Documents

The references within your document are an important way to connect your document with the rest of the scientific community and literature. The references and background information help establish what work has already been done, and it sets the stage for why your work is important. It helps the reader understand where your work fits in the broader scientific literature. Citing others' work also helps show good will by recognizing others' hard work and contributions. Most of your references will be of journal articles, but they may occasionally be books or websites.

References are fairly easy to add to a document, once you learn how. If you are writing your document in Word, then Endnote can track your references, help you insert your references, and format the bibliography. If you are using Latex or Overleaf, then you can create a bib file to manage your references. To get reference information, visit the document's homepage (like the online journal) or download them from Google Scholar.

When should I cite a document

When should you cite a document? This is hard question for many students. Here's some general guidelines.

• Examples. Give a citation when you want to want to share an example of something. For instance when you are discussing in your paper how someone applied method X to study problem Y, give citations to papers that do this. Most references in your paper will likely be examples from the literature and be in the Introduction of the paper.
• Original data or results. Give a citation when you discuss the data or results from someone else.
• Comparisons. If you are comparing your results to another paper, definitely give a citation for that paper.
• Methodology. If you are using a method, software, tool, or technique that someone else developed, give a citation to them.
• Common knowledge. You don't need to give citations of common knowledge. For example the boiling point of water at 1 atm is 100 Celsius. This is widely known, so no need to give citation. If something isn't widely known, then do give a citation, like the boiling point of water at 0.2 atm.

How many references should I have?

There is no one answer to this. Some journal articles have as few as 20 references, while others have more than 100. Review articles may have several hundred references. I tend to include an abundance of references in my journal articles, and I've had papers with up to 150 references in them. I'd rather be generous with references to others' work, than stingy with references.