Tag Archives: referencing

Retraction Watch and Zotero

intouea.com Posted on by

Retraction Watch is a blog that reports on retractions of academic articles.

A retraction is a statement in an academic journal that an article previously published in the journal is not valid after all. Usually this is because of plagiarism, fraud or serious errors. For example, in 2010 The Lancet retracted a notorious paper by Andrew Wakefield and others (published 12 years earlier) that linked the MMR vaccine to autism.

The referencing tool Zotero now checks the Retraction Watch database to ensure you are not using a retracted source in your research.

Citing Statista

intouea.com Posted on by

The website Statista provides statistics and charts on business, industry, etc. Now you can easily cite them in your assignments. For example:

Statistic: Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 1st quarter 2019 (in millions) | Statista

On the right of this chart’s Statista page you can see the Citation option:

Citation option

Choose Harvard and you get this reference:

Facebook. (2019). Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 1st quarter 2019 (in millions). Statista. Statista Inc.. Accessed: July 17, 2019. https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/

You can copy this reference and paste it into your assignment.

Citing Wikipedia

intouea.com Posted on by

You’re not supposed to cite Wikipedia in your assignments, but hey, let’s stick it to the man. And there are occasions when citing Wikipedia is appropriate. Maybe you’re writing an assignment about Wikipedia!

For the year of publication, use the year when the Wikipedia page was last modified. This information appears at the bottom of the page:

This page was last modified on 17 August 2017, at 17:34.

Here is the format for a Harvard reference to a Wikipedia article about lithic flakes (archaeology).

In-text citation

(‘Title of article’, Year)

Channel flakes are caused by the fluting of particular Paleo-Indian projectile points ('Lithic flake', 2017).

Reference list

‘Title of article’ (Year) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… (Accessed: date).

'Lithic flake' (2017) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithic_flake (Accessed: 26 June 2019).

The same format is used when citing other wikis:

'Caxambu Style Borborygmus Potion' (2018) Harry Potter Wiki. Available at: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Leaky_Cauldron (Accessed: 27 June 2019).
'Corybas limpidus' (2018) Wikispecies. Available at: https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Corybas_limpidus (Accessed: 27 June 2019).
'Law of Cosines/Proof 3' (2016) Proof Wiki. Available at: https://proofwiki.org/wiki/Law_of_Cosines/Proof_3 (Accessed: 27 June 2019).

ZoteroBib

intouea.com Posted on by

ZoteroBib helps you make a bibliography quickly.

For example, you find this book in Google Books. Paste the URL (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mT-jBQAAQBAJ) into the ZoteroBib search box. Choose a style, such as Cite Them Right 10th edition – Harvard. ZoteroBib creates and formats the reference for you:

Nilsson, N. J. (2014) Principles of Artificial Intelligence. Morgan Kaufmann.

Next you find this article. You could paste its URL into the box or use the DOI (10.1007/s11036-017-0932-8). ZoteroBib adds it to your bibliography:

Lu, H. et al. (2018) ‘Brain Intelligence: Go beyond Artificial Intelligence’, Mobile Networks and Applications, 23(2), pp. 368–375. doi: 10.1007/s11036-017-0932-8.

You find this book on Amazon and use the URL or the ISBN (978-1292153964). Your next source is a web page and you use its URL (https://futureoflife.org/background/benefits-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/). You even cite a Wikipedia article – though your teacher will not be happy!

When you’ve finished, copy the bibliography and paste it into your document. Here it is:

Reference list

‘Artificial intelligence’ (2019) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Artificial_intelligence&oldid=889698756 (Accessed: 27 March 2019).

Benefits & Risks of Artificial Intelligence (no date) Future of Life Institute. Available at: https://futureoflife.org/background/benefits-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/ (Accessed: 27 March 2019).

Lu, H. et al. (2018) ‘Brain Intelligence: Go beyond Artificial Intelligence’, Mobile Networks and Applications, 23(2), pp. 368–375. doi: 10.1007/s11036-017-0932-8.

Nilsson, N. J. (2014) Principles of Artificial Intelligence. Morgan Kaufmann.

Russell, S. J. et al. (2016) Artificial intelligence: a modern approach. Third edition, Global edition. Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam, Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo: Pearson (Prentice Hall series in artificial intelligence).