The Art of Citation: Connecting Every Claim to the Right Evidence
Use citations to reveal the architecture of an argument, not to inflate a reference list.
Citations perform different jobs
A citation can establish a definition, document evidence, identify a method, acknowledge an origin, locate a debate or support a comparison. Decide which job is required before selecting the source.
Prefer the primary source for a specific finding and authoritative synthesis for a broad state-of-field claim. Do not cite a paper merely because another paper cited it; inspect the original.
Place citations precisely
Attach a reference to the proposition it supports. A citation at the end of a long paragraph may leave the reader unable to determine which claims are evidenced. When several sources are grouped, explain the pattern they collectively demonstrate.
Avoid citation laundering, irrelevant self-citation and references that do not contain the attributed claim. Verify author names, title, year, journal, volume, pages and DOI.
Audit the network
Check that every in-text citation appears in the reference list and every listed reference is cited. Use DOI links where available, but do not invent missing identifiers.
A credible reference list is current enough for the question, historically aware where necessary and diverse enough to represent the actual field rather than one convenient cluster.