Anyone writing a thesis, working on a term paper during their studies, or simply interested in working in a precise and academically sound manner, will sooner or later face the question of how best to handle literature, use the right references, and cite texts correctly. This is an important skill to acquire, particularly during one’s studies, and universities accordingly offer various opportunities to learn exactly that.
As part of a seminar at TU Dresden, I used to regularly give a short input talk on how best to work with literature in an academic context: how to file it, how to cite it, and similar matters. With the shift brought about by the pandemic, many courses moved to a hybrid or fully online format, which made it worthwhile to digitise and record this content as well. That is how I came to record this input talk on academic writing and citation and make it available to students online.
It then occurred to me that this would be a good opportunity to make the material from back then freely available online as well – so I am publishing this short video course here today.
The video course runs for around three-quarters of an hour. Alongside it, I am providing a transcription of the talk, which can also be used as a handout. Below, you will find the videos together with their corresponding transcriptions. The transcriptions also have the advantage of allowing me to offer this article and the videos on this English-language version of my blog as well. While the videos themselves have not been translated, the transcriptions have.
I hope you enjoy listening, watching and reading!
Note: The following text is a linguistically polished version of the video lecture. It reflects the content faithfully and in full, while dispensing with verbal filler words, repetitions, and slips of the tongue for the sake of readability.
Introduction
In this lecture on “Academic Writing and Citation”, we look at some key aspects of academic writing – for instance when writing papers or theses – and, in particular, at how to handle sources and cite them properly.
The lecture is divided into five chapters, in which we cover four main topics:
- How to gather and organise literature sensibly.
- How to use and cite sources – texts in particular – correctly.
- How images can be cited and used in one’s own work.
- How to organise the writing process sensibly and prevent writer’s block.
Organising Literature
This section covers how to find material, file it, and organise notes.
Finding Material
First, it is important to be clear about the goal of the research: one wants to find information relevant to one’s own research question – ideally the original source of a piece of information, known as primary literature.
To gain an overview of a subject area, it is helpful to look at review articles (survey papers) first. However, these are generally not primary literature themselves; rather, they refer to a great deal of primary literature. If one reads interesting information in a review paper, the works cited within it must be traced back to find the origin of that information – the primary literature.
There are several ways to find literature:
- Use search engines such as library catalogues (e.g. the SLUB), Google Scholar, or publisher portals (e.g. ACM) with suitable keywords.
- Take a targeted approach by identifying relevant conferences or journals in the given research field and reviewing their regular publications.
- Follow citation chains: for a particularly rich paper, it is worth looking at its bibliography to see which sources other researchers in the field draw on, and following these up further.
- Set up search alerts: for more extensive pieces of work (a doctorate, master’s or diploma thesis), it is advisable to set up a search alert for specific keywords with relevant search engines, which will notify you by email of new publications.
Organising Material
All recorded information – both information taken from the literature and one’s own research findings and ideas – must be documented in a traceable way and kept clearly separate: is this researched information that requires a citation, or is it one’s own finding? Even for one’s own findings, it should be traceable how one arrived at them.
Rather than a simple folder of PDFs, it is advisable to use a professional reference management tool for filing material. Well-known examples include:
- Citavi and EndNote (commercial)
- Mendeley (Elsevier, free of charge) and Zotero (open source, available as a Firefox extension, among other options)
These tools offer several advantages:
- Literature can be filed and structured cleanly in a database, along with all the necessary bibliographic information.
- They generally offer good integration with Word, other word-processing tools, or LaTeX, enabling an efficient writing workflow – from citing sources through to automatically generating the bibliography.
- Literature can be organised into collections or folders; a document can belong to multiple collections at once (similar to nested keywords or tags). This makes it possible to create a separate collection for each writing project while still being able to draw on literature already reviewed.
- Literature can be sorted by topic, making it quicker to find again.
Citing Literature
Once literature and one’s own ideas have been organised properly, the question arises of how to use this information correctly – that is, how to cite it. Below are some principles for good citation practice.
Duty to Attribute
All information that is not one’s own contribution must be marked as taken from elsewhere – this applies to both direct and paraphrased textual borrowings. Direct quotations are marked using quotation marks; for paraphrased content, a citation must immediately follow to make clear that the information originates elsewhere. This duty to attribute applies not only to text but also to images, tables, and data visualisations.
Working with Images
- The source must always be given for image material.
- Copyright must be respected; where necessary, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder beforehand.
- Even cropped sections of an image must be marked as taken from elsewhere. The context of the image must not be altered by cropping.
- If a borrowed image is edited in any way, the changes made must be stated.
- For image material from archives, the holding institution and location must be given.
- It is worth checking the requirements of the relevant publisher regarding image use (e.g. stating the recording device or method used, as is common in the natural sciences for microscopy images).
Reusing One’s Own Text (Self-Plagiarism)
Previously published text of one’s own must also be cited when reused – even where it is paraphrased. Otherwise, this constitutes self-plagiarism.
Using Citations Sparingly
- Cite as much as necessary, but as little as possible.
- Only cite the part that is actually relevant – the scope of the borrowing should be kept as small as possible.
- Direct quotations should generally be avoided and used only where truly necessary; otherwise, information should be paraphrased in one’s own words and marked as such.
Consistency
When quoting directly, the text must be reproduced letter for letter and character for character – including any spelling errors or now-unusual spellings it contains. Any own remarks or changes (e.g. to improve readability) are added in square brackets. Omissions are indicated using square brackets containing three dots “[…]”.
Immediacy
Sound academic work always requires drawing on the origin of a piece of information – the primary literature – rather than the review paper in which it was found. Where primary literature is difficult to access (for example because it is old and rarely held in library collections), the addition “cited in” may exceptionally be used: the primary source is named first, followed by the secondary source from which the information was actually taken. However, this should remain the exception – good academic practice generally requires citing primary literature.
Appropriateness
It must be clear what a citation refers to and why it is relevant at that point. Citations should be woven skilfully into one’s own text so as not to disrupt the flow of reading – for instance, through small grammatical adjustments marked in square brackets when quoting directly. Paraphrased content needs a clear connection to one’s own argument, so that the thread of the argument remains intact.
Handling Translations
- When quoting directly, no translation should be offered – once a text has been translated, even literally, it is no longer a direct quotation but a paraphrase, and must be marked accordingly. Direct quotations are always given in the original language and placed in quotation marks.
- Since even a German audience for academic work is largely proficient in English, no German translation is required for English-language literature (or, conversely, no translation into the target language of the paper is required where the audience is expected to read the source language).
- If writing one’s own work in British or American English, one variety should be chosen and used consistently throughout. Direct quotations taken from sources written in the other variety are not adapted, but reproduced exactly as in the original.
Dealing with Plagiarism
According to the definition published by the German Rectors’ Conference (Hochschulrektorenkonferenz), plagiarism is “the appropriation of texts, ideas, or data from others without clearly identifying the originator”. A checklist for avoiding plagiarism:
- Have you used the correct referencing system?
- Have you applied the prescribed citation style consistently?
- Have you provided sufficient examples/evidence to support your arguments?
- Are your own ideas clearly presented and distinguished from those of others?
- Have all ideas taken from others been identified as such?
- Have direct quotations been placed in quotation marks?
Marking Citations
Different academic disciplines use different citation styles.
Overview of Citation Styles
- Numeric referencing system (e.g. IEEE, Vancouver): common in the life and natural sciences. Entries in the bibliography are numbered consecutively, and a number in square brackets within the running text points to the relevant entry. The bibliography is sorted according to the order in which sources first appear.
- Author–date system (e.g. APA, Harvard, Oxford): the reference is given via the author’s name(s) and year of publication, e.g. “(Goethe 1854)”. The bibliography is sorted alphabetically by author surname.
- Footnote references: common particularly in literary, artistic and humanities disciplines, where the source is given directly as a footnote on the page rather than in a bibliography.
Citation Keys in Computer Science
In computer science – particularly in theses – a key-based format is common: square brackets containing the initial letters of the authors’ surnames together with a two-digit year, e.g. [Gol17].
- One author: the first three letters of the surname, e.g. [Gol17].
- Two to three or four authors: the initial letters of each surname, e.g. [GSV17].
- More authors: the first three authors followed by a plus sign, e.g. [GSV+17].
- Multiple publications with the same key in the same year: distinguished by an appended lower-case letter, e.g. [Gol17a], [Gol17b].
In LaTeX, this citation style can be generated using the “alpha” bibliography style option.
Placement of the Citation Key
- For a direct quotation, the key is placed immediately after it.
- Where the borrowing relates only to a small detail within a sentence (e.g. a figure), the key is placed immediately after that piece of information.
- Where the borrowing relates to an entire sentence, the key is placed at the end of the sentence – before the closing punctuation mark.
- Where the borrowing relates to an entire paragraph, the key can be placed at the end of the paragraph (after the final full stop). It is more elegant, however, to incorporate the key at the start of the passage, e.g.: “As Schmidt et al. [SW12] explain, the following three aspects are important: …” This makes the scope of the citation implicitly clear.
Important: citation keys are never “read aloud” or pronounced as a word – they function like a superscript footnote number. In the text, the author’s name is stated explicitly (e.g. “as Schmidt explains [Sch12]”), with the key serving only as a cross-reference to the bibliography.
The Bibliography
Structure
The bibliography contains exclusively those sources actually cited in the work – no more and no less. Every citation key used in the text must have a corresponding entry; this ensures the traceability and verifiability of the work.
Sorting (as commonly practised in computer science):
- Alphabetically by author surname (or citation key).
- Where several sources by the same author exist: by year of publication (most recent first), and thereafter, where necessary, by title.
Required Details by Media Type
Common to all entries are: author(s), title and year of publication. Depending on the media type, further details are required:
- Books: author, full title, year of publication, publisher, edition (where applicable), place of publication (where applicable).
- Conference papers: author, article title, year of publication, name, and location of the conference, page numbers within the proceedings (where applicable).
- Journal articles: author, title, year of publication, name of the journal, volume, issue number (where applicable), page numbers.
- Contributions to edited volumes: author, title, year of publication, editor(s), title of the volume, edition (where applicable), publisher, place of publication, page numbers.
- Documentation/standards: instead of an author, the publishing institution (where applicable), title, date of publication; address and version are optional.
- Theses: author, title, year, type of work (bachelor’s, master’s, diploma thesis, doctoral dissertation), institution, place.
- Online sources: web address (preferably a permanent URL, where available), author, title, date of publication (where available), and the date accessed. It is advisable to also archive the page locally, to document the state of the page at the time of access in a traceable manner.
Note: Websites are frequently not academic sources in the strict sense, as their scholarly quality is generally not verified through a peer-review process.
Handling One’s Own Findings
Particularly for theses that go beyond pure literature review, one’s own findings must also be documented traceably and archived permanently. This includes:
- The methodology/approach used, as well as records of interim results.
- Consistent, meaningful file naming, e.g. following the scheme Project_Description_Version_Date.
- Where possible, making one’s own research findings available in relevant databases (less common in computer science).
- A “lab book” (which may be digital), in which working steps, observations, ideas, and problems encountered during the work are recorded.
Writing
The Five Phases of the Writing Process
- Ordering and structuring: organising research material, data, and one’s own notes sensibly and making them easy to find again.
- Outlining and sketching: developing a coherent thread of argument, creating an initial working outline and sketching the train of thought in bullet points.
- Writing: drafting an initial version of the text, which need not yet be perfect.
- Revising: reviewing content and language – the thread of argument, grammar, style, level of detail – and adjusting the outline where necessary.
- Editing: making formal adjustments such as layout, spacing and formatting.
Not every type of writer works through these phases strictly in this order – some develop their outline more organically out of the writing process itself. Nevertheless, all five phases occur in every writing process.
Time Planning
Understanding these phases helps to break the complex task of “writing” down into manageable stages and to set motivating milestones. For planning purposes, it is advisable to:
- Define broad working phases and establish their duration (e.g. on a weekly basis).
- Allow for roughly 30% buffer time – ideally not tacked on at the end, but factored proportionally into each individual working phase.
- Derive weekly plans into daily plans, allowing for no more than around four hours of focused working time per day.
- Establish fixed routines (e.g. regular working blocks in the morning/afternoon) to achieve regularity and mental relief.
Developing Structure – Three Steps
- Free structuring: first consider what to write about and how the thread of argument might look – for example, through brainstorming and a mind map, with the central topic placed in the middle and ideas branching out freely around it.
- Incorporating a conventional structure: academic works often follow a similar pattern – introduction (motivation, relevance), background/foundations, analysis and concept, implementation/proof, results and discussion. Deviating from this pattern is possible where the nature of the work calls for it.
- Revising the structure: choose meaningful, consistently worded headings (for example, instead of “Background”, name the specific concepts actually covered). For each section of the outline, note in bullet points or brief running text what content belongs there, and keep the planned length of the text in mind (the introduction and conclusion should not be longer than the main body).
Strategies Against Writer’s Block
- Working from the outline: starting from the fixed structure, first note down bullet points, then gradually turn these into complete sentences.
- Free writing: write down one’s thoughts without regard for structure or linguistic perfection – revision can follow later.
- Switching medium: write on paper instead of on a computer, as paper offers more freedom (notes at an angle, between the lines, freer visualisation), which often makes it easier to access one’s thoughts.
- Dictating on the move: since ideas frequently arise during movement – for instance, while going for a walk – they can be recorded using a dictation function (a smartphone app or dictation device) and subsequently transcribed automatically. The resulting text is usually still colloquial and imperfect, but provides a valuable basis for further work.
This concludes this lecture on academic writing and citation.
