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BIOL 4681: Biology Seminar

Create a complete citation

Before creating a complete citation, you need to know which citation style to use (There are different styles!). Check if your professor wants you to use a certain style. If not, choose one you like and use it for every citation. Consistency is important.

Remember to use in-text citations (citations within the body of your paper) every time you quote or use information from an article you read.

Below are a few different citation styles:

Cite

Below is information on how to gather the information needed for a complete citation. You need:

  1. Author(s) name(s)
  2. Date of publication
  3. ARTICLE title
  4. JOURNAL title
  5. Journal volume number
  6. Journal issue number (if there is one)
  7. Article's page range OR article number

Citation Information in the PubMed Database

In the PubMed database, you will find that information in the following locations:

Example 1

Screenshot from PubMed of article information. Green arrows identify each piece of the citation.

  • Author(s): Darwin, Heran K.
  • Date of publication: 2021
  • Article Title: Mycobacterium tuberculosis: The honey badger of pathogens
  • Journal Title: EMBO Rep
  • Journal volume number: 22
  • Journal issue number: 9
  • Page range or article number: e53619
 
Example 2

Screenshot of article information in PubMed. Green text and arrow identify each citation piece in the image.

  • Author(s): Madden, Danielle; Whaite, Alessandra; Jones, Elizabeth; Belov, Katherine; Timms, Peter; Polkinghorne, Adam
  • Date of publication: 2018
  • Article Title: Koala immunology and infectious diseases: How much can the koala bear?
  • Journal Title: Dev Comp Immmunol.
  • Journal volume number: 82
  • Journal issue number: None. If it had an issue number, it would have been right after the volume number and in paretheses ().
  • Page range or article number: 177-185

Test Yourself!

Take this optional self-quiz to see if you understand how to identify the pieces of a citation.