Research Guides: Soil Science: Citations Styles & Tools

Why Cite?

Citing the work that supports your research is both an ethical issue and a legal issue.

The ethics of citing is based on the scholarly tradition of giving credit for information and ideas that are not one's own. Science has a long tradition of acknowledging priority through citations. You have the ethical responsibility to cite all works that were used to support your research, to give credit to the earlier work and to provide a clear path for those who follow in your footsteps.

As so eloquently expressed by Isaac Newton in a letter to Robert Hooke in 1675 (Merton 1965):

If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.

The legal issues of citing one's sources are codified in Copyrights, Title 17 of the U.S. Code, which describes the legal protections of authors' and creators' intellectual property rights.

[Merton, RK. 2006. On the shoulders of giants: a Shandean postscript. New York: The Free Press. p. 31]

American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)

The Tri-Societies publication style is used widely across soil science to prepare papers and writing assignments. Guidelines for writers are outlined in the Publications Handbook and Style Manual and generally follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by American Psychological Association
Call Number: BF76.7 .P83 2020 Reference
ISBN: 9781433832154
Publication Date: 2019-10-01

Purdue OWL-APA
Formatting and Style Guide
APA Style Guide- Electronic Sources
Style Manual Publications Handbook and Style Manual
ASA-CSSA-SSSA Publications Handbook and Style Manual

The Publications Handbook and Style Manual serves as a guide for authors in preparing manuscripts and other material submitted for publications by ASA-CSSA-SSSA
Style Manual Publications Handbook and Style Manual
The American Society of America (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) Publications Handbook and Style Manual serves as a guide for authors in preparing manuscripts and other material submitted for publication by ASA, CSSA, and SSSA. It should be used as a primary source for writing, style, editing, and procedures for ASA, CSSA, SSSA publications.

CSE Quick Citation Guide CSE (Council of Science Editors) Style is widely used in scientific disciplines, particularly in the natural and physical sciences. The CSE manual describes three systems of documentation. All three systems use a reference list at the end of the paper with complete source information.

The Name-Year system uses parenthetical citations consisting of the author's last name and year of publication
The Citation-Sequence and Citation-Name systems both use numbered references in the text to refer to the reference list at the end. In Citation-Sequence, the reference list is presented and numbered in the order the sources appear in the text, while in Citation-Name, the reference list is numbered alphabetically by author's last name.

Official Guidance from the CSE

CSE Style-Scientific Style and Format 8th ed.
From University of Chicago Press, the publishers of the CSE Manual.

CSE Name-Year Style Guides

Citation Guide: CSE Name-Year System
Guide to using parenthetical references in CSE Style, from the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Clearinghouse, from the Colorado State Department of English.
The Writer's Handbook: CSE Documention Style
Quick guide to both Name-Year and Citation-Sequence/Citation-Name systems, from the Writing Center at University of Wisconsin

Online CSE Citation-Name/Citation-Sequence Style Guides

Citation Guide: CSE Citation-Sequence System
Guide to using numbered references in CSE Style, from the Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse, from the Colorado State Department of English.
The Writer's Handbook: CSE Documentation Style
Quick guide to both Name-Year and Citation-Sequence/Citation-Name systems, from the Writing Center at University of Wisconsin

The Academic Writer's Toolkit : A User's Manual
Guide to writing empirical papers, theses, and dissertations
Style Policy Manual for Theses and Dissertations (pdf)
From the Graduate Division at UH Manoa-2018
Handbook of Academic Writing

Organize

Endnote [$65 for individual site license from UHM ITS] | Guide to Using Endnote

Endnote is an application that imports citations from your searches in web databases and helps you organize your references. It works with Microsoft Word helping you create in-text citations, footnotes, and bibliographies.

Endnote Basic [Free] | Guide to Using Endnote Basic

EndNote Basic (formerly EndNote Web) is an online program that helps you organize references and create properly formatted bibliographies. This is a separate program from the desktop version of EndNote. It is a free version of EndNote available for institutions which subscribe to ISI Databases, like Web of Science.

Zotero [Free] | LibGuide to Using Zotero

Zotero is a plug-in from Mozilla that you use with the Firefox browser. Simply download the plug-in, activate the Zotero application by clicking on the Zotero icon in your browser. You can now capture citations into a library held on your hard drive or on a flash drive. Zotero works with Word and OpenOffice after you have downloaded the plug-ins.