How to cite – book, chapter, article

Do you know how citations of books and articles differ? Various types of sources slightly differ in the way their citations look, and can also differ in terms of their names. However, the principle should remain the same. Here you can find our “who, when, what, where and in what” guide. What else is here?

If we’re learning how to cite, it’s important to understand the principle of citation. What do the individual items, numbers and letters mean? What good is it to write them down? We thus recommend reading the following examples in an analytical manner. Secondly, you need to know roughly how the information should be ordered and within the citation norm that you’ve decided upon with your class or school. Thirdly, it’s important to learn to use a citation manager so you ideally don’t have to remember anything by heart or write everything down by hand. Someday, you might be working a lot with citations, and creating them all by hand would definitely take up a lot of your energy. Nonetheless, it’s important to know how to recognize a correctly ordered citation.

The following examples are listed in the ČSN ISO 690 norm, and at the end in the APA 6th edition norm. In each example, we show what the citation looks like in the bibliography along with a breakdown, and we also show what the citation looks like in the text. You can also look into the citation we’ve created in the citation manager and look at the individual items.

Book

Peter Jarvis - Adult education and lifelong learning: Theory and practice

Daniel Prokop – Slepé skvrny

Citation manager: 

Have a look at the citation at Citace.com and click on “Show data”.

Citation in the bibliography: 

JARVIS, Peter, 1995. Adult education and lifelong learning: Theory and practice. 2. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780415102421.

Breakdown: 

WHO: JARVIS, Peter, WHEN: 1995. WHAT: Adult education and lifelong learning: Theory and practice. EDITION: Second. WHERE: New York: WHERE: Routledge. IN WHAT: ISBN 9780415102421. 
WHO: SURNAME, Name, WHEN: Year of publication. WHAT: Title: Secondary Title. EDITION: Order of editions. WHERE: Place of publication: WHERE: Publisher. IN WHAT: ISBN.

Commentary: 

We always list the author’s name if it is known to us. The year helps us order and search for the works. In addition to the title, the book can also have a secondary title listed after a colon. We list the publication because one book may be published several times. We list the publication in the citation because revisions can be made in later versions of the work. Thus, we’re trying to lead readers to the correct version. Over the course of its existence, a book can be published in various places. In order to denote the correct version, we list the city and publisher. You can typically recognize a book according to an ISBN (International Standard Book Number). With a little luck, the citation will be generated for you automatically after typing this number into a citation manager. 😊

Section of a book 

David Nicol – Resituating feedback from the reactive to the proactive 

You can also run into books that have ISBNs but are written by more than one author. In this case, it’s necessary to cite the section of the book and specific author precisely. A chapter in a book then looks like a citation within a citation.

Citation manager: 

Have a look at the citation at Citace.com and click on “Show data”

Citation in the bibliography: 

NICOL, David, 2013. Resituating feedback from the reactive to the proactive. BOUD, David and Elisabeth MOLLOY. Feedback in higher and professional education: understanding it and doing it well. 1. New York: Routledge, p. 16. ISBN 9780203074336.

Breakdown: 

WHO: NICOL, David, WHEN: 2013. WHAT: Resituating feedback from the reactive to the proactive. (CHAPTER) WHO: BOUD, David and Elisabeth MOLLOY. WHAT: Feedback in higher and professional education: understanding it and doing it well. EDITION: 1. WHERE: New York: WHERE: Routledge, WHERE: P. 16. IN WHAT: ISBN 9780203074336. (BOOK)

Commentary: 

For describing the chapter: We list the name of the author and chapter. We list the year of publication. We list the name of the chapter. For describing the book in which the chapter is found: We list the author or authors. We list the name of the book and its secondary title if necessary. We list the publication (only the first publication is optional). We list the city, publisher and page on which the chapter begins. Then we list the ISBN.

Article

Michal Černý – Od entropie k dynamické komplexitě: k jednomu pojmovému posunu v infosféře 

Citation manager: 

Have a look at the citation in the citatino manager and click on “Show info”.

Citation in the bibliography: 

ČERNÝ, Michal, 2020. Od entropie k dynamické komplexitě: k jednomu pojmovému posunu v infosféře. ProInflow [online]. 12(1), 61-78 [cit. 2020-07-31]. DOI: 10.5817/ProIn2020-1-4. ISSN 1804-2406. Available at: http://www.phil.muni.cz/journals/index.php/proinflow/article/view/2020-1-4

Breakdown: 

WHO: ČERNÝ, Michal, WHEN: 2020. WHAT: Od entropie k dynamické komplexitě: k jednomu pojmovému posunu v infosféře. WHERE: ProInflow [online]. KDY: 12(1), WHERE: 61-78 [cit. 2020-07-31]. IN WHAT: DOI: 10.5817/ProIn2020-1-4. IN WHAT: ISSN 1804-2406. WHERE: Available at: http://www.phil.muni.cz/journals/index.php/proinflow/article/view/2020-1-4

Commentary: 

For an article from a journal, we naturally list the name of the author, the year the article was published, and the name of the article. Then we list the name of the journal. We specify time using the year and issue of the journal in the given year. We can also list when we cited the article. This is more important for media that are editable, i.e. web pages, than something like an article in a scientific journal. We list the DOI article identification number if it’s available. DOI helps us automatically generate a citation. 😊 We can also list the ISSN, which is the issue number of the journal. In the end, we can list the link from which the article is available.

DOI – the goal of DOI is to make it easier to find and access articles. If the article has a DOI, it also has a generated address. Give it a try: https://doi.org/10.5817/ProIn2020-1-4. Thus, citations can look more simple, like this:

ČERNÝ, Michal, 2020. Od entropie k dynamické komplexitě: k jednomu pojmovému posunu v infosféře. ProInflow [online]. 12(1), 61-78 [cit. 2020-07-31]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5817/ProIn2020-1-4

If you you’ve chosen the APA 6th edition over ČSN ISO 690, have a look at the citation options:

APA 6th edition

Prokop, D. (2020). Slepé skvrny: o chudobě, vzdělávání, populismu a dalších výzvách české společnosti (Druhé, rozšířené vydání). Brno: Host.

Nicol, D. (2013). Resituating feedback from the reactive to the proactive. In D. Boud & E. Molloy, Feedback in higher and professional education: understanding it and doing it well (1st ed., p. 16). New York: Routledge.

Černý, M. (2020). Od entropie k dynamické komplexitě: k jednomu pojmovému posunu v infosféře [Online]. Proinflow, 12(1), 61-78. https://doi.org/10.5817/ProIn2020-1-4