Basic concepts
When embarking on an activity, project or piece of research, the likelihood is that someone else has written about the same subject before and you need to do some research. You must always identify the sources used so that readers know where your ideas came from.
In order to do this, you need a very clear understanding of these key concepts:
This is a mention in your paper of something that was written or said by someone else. This could be, for example, an article, a podcast or a tweet. It must follow a citation style or standard and include a minimum amount of information identifying the source. For example:
90% of students have no problem successfully completing the first stage (Sánchez, 2010).
This is all the basic data needed to identify the sources used. It must follow a citation style or standard. The full list of references must be included in the bibliography at the end of your work, and every citation in the text must have a reference in the bibliography. For example:
Garita, R. [Renato]. (2010). Modelos y teorías computacionales de la memoria humana: Un estado de la cuestión y análisis crítico. Revista Educación, 34(2), 75–94.
A citation style is a set of guidelines for citing and referencing sources in your work. There are many different citation styles.
This involves taking someone else's idea and passing it off as your own. Copying and pasting a text from the internet without citing the source can be considered plagiarism. This is a serious offence at the UOC.
Citation style
Are you unsure which style to use? Consider the field of your faculty and the guidelines provided by your teachers. The most important thing is consistency: always use the same style in your citations, both in the text itself and in the bibliography.
The information to be included will depend on the type of document you are citing. Look at examples on how different types of content in physical and digital format should be cited in the most widely used citation styles:
Useful citation tools
Reference managers
There are reference management tools available that can be used to store and manage your digital library and automatically generate lists of references for your academic papers.
Reference managers
At the UOC, we recommend the following two:
Mendeley has a browser extension for saving references from the websites you consult and a plug-in for Microsoft Word for the automatic creation of bibliographies based on your collection of references.
If you use automatic citation tools, bear in mind the guidelines for citations for each style and make sure you review the resulting bibliography afterwards.
Other tools
