When to cite and reference

• Any information that you did not determine in the study should be cited.
• Use in-text citations anytime you cite a significant idea that is not your original work.
• You must internally cross-reference all of your own figures and tables when discussing your results.

What to cite

Authoritative scientific knowledge resides in unchanging published peer reviewed documents that anyone can obtain. Therefore,

• avoid references to webpages such as Wikipedia (can be changed any time),
• lab handouts for this class (not published works),
• blogs and educational web pages (not peer reviewed),
• the Desire2Learn course site (no one outside of the course has access, you won't even have access in a few months).

Instead, you should cite,

• primary peer-reviewed literature,
• scientific books including textbooks,
• online databases (although these are occassionally updated when errors are found, the entries typically include a unique accession number to guide the reader to the information; also results from such databases may be a source of data in your paper).

Use Endnote to make citing easy

Endnote is a database in which you can store citation data. It works as a plugin to Microsoft Office. With Endnote you can insert citations into the text of your documents that link to an automatically formatted your References section. You can change the style of your citations and references with a few clicks. If you use Endnote, you can be confident that your references will always be formatted to meet the requirements of your assignment without thinking about it.

• Download the Endnote installer by following the instructions at software.depaul.edu.

• After installing, double-click this link to the  Lab Reports Output Style file. It should open in EndNote.

• In EndNote, go to File Menu → Save As. Delete the word “copy” and click Save.

• Click on File Menu → Close Style.

• Open Edit → Output Styles → Open Style Manager... and check the box next to Lab Reports..

• In Microsoft Word, go to the Endnote tab and from the Output Styles dropdown menu select Lab Reports. From now on, every citation and reference you pull in from Endnote will be in the exact format this class!

• For training in Endnote, I recommend the short course from LinkedIn Learning.

• For access to the full course content, log-in using your free DePaul account by clicking Sign In and then enter your DePaul email (you may also have to click Sign in with your organization account). This will connect you to the DePaul Portal (which will require you to enter your Campus Connect credentials).

Manual citations

• Use either a superscripted number or a number in parentheses that refers to a specific numbered entry in your References section

Manual bibliographic formats

Every journal has its own recommended bibliographic format. Below is the current format of the journal Biochemistry. It is mostly similar to the Lab Reports Endnote template and meets the requirements for citations in the course.