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question on citations during writing

S

hi everyone,
Just wanted to ask your opinions on this --

I am working on a paper, and I was wondering if citations should be added in IMMEDIATELY after writing sentences, OR is it more time-effective if I just continue writing, and only look for the references to cite after I have finished? For example if I have finished 4 paragraphs, then I go and look for references, or should I cite them as I write each sentence?

Any tips on how I can work faster?

thanks
love satchi

T

I do both of these things. I think if I'm writing something I'm familiar with then I just write and add references later, but if it's something that I will forget where I got it from then I will add references as write. If I really want to get ideas down quickly I might just write a short hand reference like (Bloggs) just so I remember where I got it from, then update with the real thing later.

D

I've done both. I do find adding them later takes much more time, but as ToL says, sometimes you just have to get your ideas down quickly.

I

I used to mark places where references should be and insert them after writing the whole thing, convinced that this makes everything easier and faster. But sometimes I was searching for the source far too long to consider this easy. I switched to the method mentioned by Tree - I note the author's name and page number and then I turn it into proper reference.

S

thanks everyone! the thing with me is forgetting which reference fits what. It took me almost the whole morning to search for one particular reference, I think it is also because I am not familiar with the field of which I am writing, that seems to make it worse.

Do you read/glance through every paper cited? There are some papers I cannot access, so in honesty I haven't gone past the abstract

thanks again
love satchi

T

If I am sure what they contain but I can't get access to them then I just cite them. I do this when I know I know they are the key papers because they are cited by everyone else. Sometimes I cite them even if all I can get is the paper title!

S

hi Tree thanks
love satchi

S

Add citations straight away. Ideally use something like Mendeley or Zotero to find the right one, or if not leave a comment in word of what paper you want to cite.

Doing it at the end gives a worse result, and takes a LOT more time, trust me on this!

S

hi sisyphus thanks a lot. I haven't used Mendeley or Zotero before, will look it up.
love satchi

M

Hi there!

Usually I write citations immediately, and I guess it is due to my whole process of reading and writing since I usually have all the citations at hand.

I had a huge problem last year - I was writing a text and had left it unfinished for a month or so. I had inserted several paragraphs from other authors, wanting to rewrite them and cite them properly. However, my hard disk died in the meantime, and luckily I had most of the stuff (my text and the literature) on cloud, but few of those articles were not on cloud. Anyway, when I got back to finishing my paper those non-cited but inserted paragraphs were from the articles that were lost with the hard drive, and I have missed them entirely when I checked my paper. I've sent it for publication, and was duly noted by the editors that there was suspicion of plagiarism, but luckily I explained the situation, corrected my mistakes and everything was fine at the end.

After that experience I am very much inclined to finish citations when I create them. :)

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