General rules for citing sources in scientific writing

When to cite:
All ideas and facts that are obtained from other sources must be properly cited, unless they qualify as common knowledge. (If in doubt about whether something is common knowledge, provide a citation).

How to cite:
If the author’s name is used as part of the sentence, the citation should be in the form "Holsinger (1995) argues that X" If the author’s name is not used in the sentence, then the citation should be in the form "(Holsinger, 1995; Jockusch and Simon, 1997; Caira et al., 1998)". If there are one or two authors, list their names in the citation. If there are more than two authors, list the first author followed by et al. rather than listing all of the authors in citations. In the literature cited section, all authors must be listed. Refer to the example by Dr. Schwenk above for general guidelines.

Where to cite:
The citation should be placed at the end of the sentence if it applies to the entire sentence (before the punctuation) or immediately following the information it applies to. If several sentences in a row contain information from the same source, the source may be cited at the end of the last sentence.

Scientific writing advice
• Special formatting rules apply to scientific names Scientific binomials and trinomials, and genus names used alone are always italicized (or underlined). The genus should be capitalized; the species and subspecies start in lower case.
e.g. Homo sapiens Homo sapiens sapiens

The first time the scientific name of a species is mentioned, it should be spelled out in full. After that, the genus name is usually abbreviated (e.g. H. sapiens).

Higher taxonomic categories (e.g. families and phyla) are capitalized but not italicized.
e.g. Chordata, Insecta, Pongidae, Plethodontidae, Scincidae

Many taxonomic category names are also used informally (with different endings), in which case they are not capitalized. e.g. Not everyone is as fond of plethodontid salamanders as the author is.

Common names should generally be capitalized (e.g. Turkey Vulture).

• Write in a scientific style. In general, discuss ideas, not “papers" or “articles”. Do not talk about the “assignment”. Avoid a book report style. Write for a professional audience.

For example, do NOT begin with a long-winded introduction:

Dr. Elizabeth Jockusch and Dr. Ima Nobody of the University of Connecticut published the following paper in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology: “The role of hybridization in salamander evolution.”

Appropriate would be:

Jockusch and Nobody (2001) investigated how birds use their sense of smell.

• State the authors' findings in past tense: Jockusch and Nobody (2001) reported a general increase in researcher preferences for smelly birds.

• Avoid excessive quotation: In general, you should paraphrase what the authors say, not quote it, in scientific writing. Quoting is appropriate only when the original phrasing is particularly memorable. Unlike in some fields, where support for a claim comes from citing statements made by authorities, in science, the primary support comes from presentation of the authors' data, not of their words. Remember that you still must use citations to give credit for the ideas, even when you are explaining them in your own words.

• Avoid “touchy-feely” writing that relies on personal experience or feelings. Your papers should not contain the phrase "I feel that X". The important question is what you think and what you can support. (In many cases, "I feel that X" can be appropriately replaced by "I think that X" in scientific writing).

• The word “data” is the plural of “datum”. Therefore, it is correct to say that “the data show...” not “the data shows...”.