Skip to Main Content

Hospitality & Culinary Arts: Citation Style Guides

Citations 101

Citations

When using a database like ProQuest Central, the list of results retrieved after entering search terms is actually a list of citations. A citation in a database is a description of a journal article, book, or other resource. For journal article citations, the volume and issue numbers will be present, as will page numbers. For books and other formats, you will find the date and place of publication. It is important to record all parts of a citation for future use.

example of book and article citations

Find Citations and Style Manuals

The different societies that publish citation style guides do revise their standards from time to time. So online sources for these styles may be out of date. Always verify which revision or edition is being used by the online site before using their suggestions or forms.

 

  • ACS (American Chemical Society)

    Developed by the American Chemical Society, this style may be used for research papers in the field of chemistry.

    Each citation consists of two parts: the in-text citation, which provides brief identifying information within the text, and the reference list, a list of sources that provides full bibliographic information. Journal titles longer than one word are abbreviated according to the conventions set up by CASSI (Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index).

     
  • AIP (American Institute of Physics)

    AIP Style refers to the citation format established by the American Institute of Physics. AIP is the format commonly used in the field of physics. AIP is a numbered style with references numbered in the order of appearance in the article and listed in that order at the end of the article.

     
  • ALWD (Association of Legal Writing Directors)

    While the ALWD system follows the standard convention of footnotes within academic articles and inline citations in court documents, it rejects Bluebook's insistence on using different type styles in the two classes of documents. The ALWD type style is identical to that used in the Bluebook system for citations within court documents.

     
  • AMA (American Management Association)

    The AMA Style Guide for Business Writing is designed specifically for business managers.

     
  • AMA (American Medical Association)

    The style recommended by the American Medical Association (AMA) is often used for scholarly writing about medicine or health-related topics, or about other subjects in the sciences. In the AMA style, references to a work or parts of a work inside the text of a paper take the form of numbered citations. Only the number appears in the text itself; the reference preceded by the same number is included in a list at the end of your paper. (Note that this format differs from the notes-and-bibliography system of the Chicago style and should not be confused with the latter).

     
  • AMS (American Mathematical Society)

    AMS Style refers to the citation format established by the American Mathematical Society. With AMS, the # sign in brackets represents the order that the citation is mentioned in the text of the paper. For example, [5] would indicate that this is the fifth citation found in the text.
     
  • AP (Associated Press)

    From the beginning, AP reporters have written their dispatches for readers from
    diverse social, economic and educational backgrounds and a wide range of
    political views. The AP therefore strives to keep its writing style easy to read,
    concise and free of bias. The Associated Press Stylebook, first published in
    1977, clarified the news organization's rules on grammar, spelling, punctuation
    and usage. Now in its sixth edition, the Stylebook is the standard style guide for
    most U.S. newspapers, magazines and public relations firms.

     
  • APA (American Psychological Association)

    American Psychological Association (APA) style is a widely accepted style of documentation, particularly in the social sciences. APA style specifies the names and order of headings, formatting, and organization of citations and references, and the arrangement of tables, figures, footnotes, and appendices, as well as other manuscript and documentation features. APA style uses the author-date style of parenthetical referencing, with such source citations keyed to a subsequent list of "References." Also known as the Harvard Style.

    The sixth edition of the APA style guide was published in July 2009. Many online guides have not yet been updated to relfect the changes in this edition. Be aware of what edition is required for your paper and what edition you are using.

     
  • APSA (American Political Science Association)

    APSA style generally follows Chicago Manual of Style’s author-date citation practice.

     
  • ASA (American Sociological Association)

    ASA style is a widely accepted format for writing university research papers that specifies such the arrangement and punctuation of footnotes and bibliographies. Standards for ASA style are specified in the ASA style guide, which is published by the American Sociological Association, the main scholarly organization for academic sociologists in the United States.

     
  • ASABE (American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers)

    Developed by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, this style may be used for research papers in the fields of agriculture, biochemistry, and biosystems engineeering.

     
  • ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)

    ASME style is used for submissions to ASME journals, conferences and other publications in the field of mechanical engineering.

    In text citations use numbers in brackets: [1]. References to original sources for cited material should be listed together at the end of the paper, arranged in numerical order according to their order of appearance within the text.

     
  • Bluebook

    Bluebook is a uniform system of citation that is published by the Harvard Law Review and other leading law reviews and sets forth abbreviations and rules of citation for legal materials.

     
  • Chicago Manual of Style

    The Chicago Manual of Style presents two basic documentation systems, the humanities style (notes and bibliography) and the author-date system. Choosing between the two often depends on subject matter and nature of sources cited, as each system is favored by different groups of scholars.

    The humanities style is preferred by many in literature, history, and the arts. This style presents bibliographic information in notes and, often, a bibliography. It accommodates a variety of sources, including esoteric ones less appropriate to the author-date system.

    The more concise author-date system has long been used by those in the physical, natural, and social sciences. In this system, sources are briefly cited in the text, usually in parentheses, by author’s last name and date of publication. The short citations are amplified in a list of references, where full bibliographic information is provided.

     
  • CSE (Council of Science Editors)

    [Formerly called the CBE Council of Biology Editors style.] CSE is the format preferred by writers in many disciplines in the natural sciences, including biology, geology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. CSE style provides two different citation systems: the Name-Year system and the Citation-Sequence system (sometimes called the Superscript system. These systems differ in their presentation of in-text citations and in the way works cited are listed.

     
  • Government information

    Government documents can be difficult to cite. The citation elements vary slightly from those elements generally cited. It is often useful to consult a style guide that is specific for government documents.

     
  • GSA (Geological Society of America)

    Used in the geosciences.

     
  • IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc)

    The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Style is used primarily for publications in engineering, electronics, telecommunications, computer science and information technology. In this style of citation, citations are numbered and the citation numbers are included in the text in square brackets. At the end of the document, there comes the list of references that exclusively includes all bibliographical information next to the respective citation number.

     
  • MLA (Modern Language Association)

    MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. MLA style features brief parenthetical citations in the text keyed to an alphabetical list of works cited that appears at the end of the work. The MLA citation style has undergone significant changes with the release of the newest edition. We recommend that you check with your instructor about which edition of MLA you should follow.
     
  • National Library of Medicine

    It is not the purpose of the National Library of Medicine to create a new bibliographic standard with this publication, but rather to apply existing standards to complex biomedical material. NLM is an active member of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and its various published standards have been adopted for the Library's MEDLINE/PubMed database. This publication thus also serves to document the Library's rules for the structure of journal citations.

     
  • Turabian

    Turabian style is used widely in literature, history, and the arts and offers the option of using an author-date system with notes and parenthetical references. Bibliography items are listed alphabetically at the end of the research paper. Items are referred to in the body of the paper using the Footnote or In-Text style.

    Except for a few minor differences, Turabian style is the same as The Chicago Manual of Style. However, while The Chicago Manual of Style focuses on providing guidelines for publishing in general, Turabian's Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations focuses on providing guidelines for student papers, theses and dissertations.

     
  • Citation generators

    There are tools that can assist you in creating citations for your in text citations and footnotes or bibliographies at the end of your papers. Simply enter or import the citation data, choose a citation style, and the tool generates the citation for you.

    Note that the online tools are limited: they often only generate citations for the most commonly used resources, such as books and articles. They may not have an option, or generate an incorrect citation, for infrequently used formats, like videos, conference papers or interviews.

    Finally, you need to be aware of what edition of the style guide is used by the tool. Some tools have not updated to the latest versions: they can generate outdated citations. Always verify what is generated for you with the latest edition of the style guide.

     
  •