MW3104: Introduction to Epidemiology for Midwives

Citations provide a formalized way to credit the sources that you use to support your research; they ensure that others are able to find their way to the original author or resource that informed your work. Most importantly, accurate citations prevent plagiarism, i.e. claiming another scholar/author's work as ones' own. 

Various citation styles (or formats) exist; the major ones are: APA (American Psychological Association), AMA (American Medical Association), and MLA (Modern Language Association).

Regardless of the style, citations all include the same basic components:

• What was written - title of the book, journal and/or article
• Who wrote it - the author and/or editor
• When was it written - the publication date
• Where it was published and by whom - the city and publisher, or the journal name, or the host of the web page

APA Style (American Psychological Association) provides formatting guidelines for scholarly papers and other writings in the behavioral and other sciences. For specific examples, refer to the BU Library APA Guide or the APA Manual of Style

Here is an example of an APA citation for an online journal article with its components labeled (thank you to OpenSUNY Info Literacy Citation Tutorial & Quiz for citation graphic):

What is a DOI?

A Digital Object Identifier, or DOI, is a unique alphanumeric code assigned to individual online content (like journal articles).  DOIs provide a method of reliably locating materials online.  Unlike URLs (i.e. website "addresses"), a DOI number will never change; it therefore provides a more permanent method for locating and accessing the article.

An example of a DOI is 10.1002/1r.21308. Wherever possible, include the DOI number in citing articles from online sources.

This guide provides an easy dropdown menu of types of resources, and has multiple examples to follow for each resource type.