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Biological Sciences project students Library guide

For all Biological Sciences students undertaking their third year project module BI3PRO. The guide contains information and advice on finding books and articles, compiling a literature review, poster and the final project as well as guidance on formatting

Referencing

Agree a referencing style with your supervisor and once you have chosen one stick to it throughout! You should note the style you are using at the top of the Bibliography in your project.

**Common mistake! If you've read about an idea in an article which the author has attributed to a different person (for example in the introduction to their article) you shouldn't reference the idea to that author/article, you should find the original work and read and reference that instead. 

Top Tip!
Referencing a key idea you've read about in multiple articles? Cite them all in the same bracket!

Referencing online journal articles

With e-journal articles, how you cite will depend on whether the journal is only published online, or if it is a print journal that has been uploaded for electronic access. You can usually tell the difference by looking for page numbers.

If the article has page numbers and a volume number (eg. Vol 357, 355-363), it is likely to be a print journal that has been uploaded to a website. These should be cited the same as print journal articles, and the URL should NOT be included in the citation.

Online only articles

You can spot these by a few different clues - often with journals which are only online you can tell by the pagination of the articles - if every article in the journal begins at page 1, has no page numbers at all or has an article number in place of page numbers (eg. e2002365) it is likely to be an online-only journal.

When referencing online only articles, you should cite it in your chosen style's format and make sure you include the following details; Authors, Title of article, Title of journal, Year and either the DOI or article number - it isn't necessary to include the URL.

As with all referencing the most important thing is to reference clearly and consistently using the same style throughout

An example of a citation for an online only article with a DOI in the Nature referencing style:

Moreno-Fortuny, A., Bragg, L., Cossu, G. & Roostalu, U. MCAM contributes to the establishment of cell autonomous polarity in myogenic and chondrogenic differentiation. Biology Open, doi:10.1242/bio.027771 (2017).

Here is the same article in the PLoS referencing style:

Moreno-Fortuny A, Bragg L, Cossu G, Roostalu U. MCAM contributes to the establishment of cell autonomous polarity in myogenic and chondrogenic differentiation. Biology Open. 2017. doi: 10.1242/bio.027771.

An example of a citiation for an online only article with an article number in the Harvard referencing style:

MAMAD, O., STUMPP, L., MCNAMARA, H. M., RAMAKRISHNAN, C., DEISSEROTH, K., REILLY, R. B. & TSANOV, M. 2017. Place field assembly distribution encodes preferred locations. PLOS Biology, 15, e2002365.

 

Here is the Study Advice team's full guide on referencing, including examples of how to lay out your in text and what details to include when you cite different kinds of material.