Sustainable Agriculture

Why Citations are Important

In science communication, include citations to external and reliable sources in order to:

• increase the credibility of your own work
• provide your reader with additional sources of information
• acknowledge the work of others who have gone before you
• ensure that your work is transparent and unbiased

Direct Quotation, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

There are certain conventions in science writing that make it a little different from other academic and non-academic writing:

• Rarely, if ever, are direct quotations taken from other work. This is largely because the actual words an author uses is not so important, whereas their findings and theories are.
• Paraphrasing the work of others is done by carefully altering sentence structure and terminology while adhering to the original meaning.
• Most often, when writing your lab reports and research papers, you will be summarizing the works of others.

Zotero is a free browser tool that keeps track of your articles and webpages, and creates citations in several formats. Sign up for a free account, and your personal library will be accessible from any computer with an internet connection.

Visit KPU Library's new Zotero guide for information on installing and using Zotero.