First we’ll refresh a common situation in our minds. We’re writing a term paper or an article and paraphrasing the thoughts of another author. We can then do two things. Firstly, we can mark the paraphrased section in our text, and secondly, we can list the whole citation in the bibliography at the end of the text.
An example of citation in the text:
A Personal Learning Environment can be understood as a technology, tools of the web 2.0 and social media that give a person support in directing their own learning (Haworth, 2016).
… and now in the bibliography:
HAWORTH, Ryan, 2016. Personal Learning Environments: A Solution for Self-Directed Learners. TechTrends [online]. 60(4), 359-364 [cit. 2017-01-15]. DOI: 10.1007/s11528-016-0074-z. ISSN 87563894. Available at: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11528-016-0074-z
Author, date
We call the style of citation that you see above “author, date”. We write the author and year in parentheses in the text (Author, year). In the bibliography, we search for the author alphabetically according to surname.
Numbering
The next option is numbering. This means that we list a number in the text instead of parentheses. In an ideal case, we’ll be able to click on the numbers, which will bring us to the relevant section of the bibliography. The bibliography is not ordered alphabetically, but according to the order of the source used.
Example in the text:
A Personal Learning Environment can be understood as a technology, tools of the web 2.0 and social media that give a person support in directing their own learning (4, p. 22).
... and in the bibliography:
4. HAWORTH, Ryan, 2016. Personal Learning Environments: A Solution for Self-Directed Learners. TechTrends [online]. 60(4), 359-364 [cit. 2017-01-15]. DOI: 10.1007/s11528-016-0074-z. ISSN 87563894. Available at: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11528-016-0074-z
Footnote
The third are footnotes. This means that you’ll be adding a number into the text in superscript. This number now refers to two places – firstly to the note at the foot of the page, where you’ll list a shortened citation, i.e. author, year of publishing and name of the work. Then you’ll add the whole citation into the bibliography at the end as is customary according to the given norm.
Example:
A Personal Learning Environment can be understood as a technology, tools of the web 2.0 and social media that give a person support in directing their own learning.4
Then in the footnotes:
4 HAWORTH, Ryan, 2016. Personal Learning Environments: A Solution for Self-Directed Learners. P. 22.
Use of styles
These styles can’t be used for all citation norms. The norm in which you can select from all three with certainty is ČSN ISO 690. Other norms are typically linked to only one of these styles.
If you’re selecting what style of citation to select, you can decide according to reader. “Style, author, date” reads more poorly, but you know immediately whose thoughts are being used. With numbering, it’s exactly the opposite. In the text, you’re disrupted only by a number, but the original sources are far away (in the bibliography at the end of the text). If you decide to use footnotes, they can significantly infringe on the page above them if they appear in greater number.