How to cite documents

When you use a reference to a work by another author or textually cite part of their work, you should indicate the source of the information. The way to do this is through citations or bibliographical references. These are usually in conjunction with a bibliography and/or inserted into the text or as a footnote. For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3MYHq9TXKc

Both can be used to support what you are saying and to recognise that what you are saying is by another person. You do not need to do this for original ideas or common knowledge.

The way to cite documents follows these rules:

  • ISO 690 for printed and audiovisual documents.

  • ISO690-2 for electronic documents.

Different institutions have adapted these standards according to their needs, changing formal aspects such as the use of upper and lower case, the order of the elements of which they form part (author, title and year), etc. These adaptations are what are known as bibliographical formats.

Institutions such as universities sometimes require the members of their education community to use one of these formats in particular. This is the case of the UOC. To view its specifications, go to language guide of the Language Service.

Citations should follow the structure below for:

a) The printed book 

Castaño, Cecilia (2005). Las mujeres y las tecnologías de la información: Internet y la trama de nuestra vida. Madrid: Alianza.

b) Printed book chapter

Guitert, Montse; Giménez, Ferran (2000). "Trabajo cooperativo en entornos virtuales de aprendizaje". In: Josep M. Duart; Albert Sangrà (comp.). Aprender en la virtualidad (pp. 113-133). Barcelona: EDIUOC (Library of Education. New Technologies, 2).

c) Journal article on paper

Sprünker, Janine (2009, July). "Webs de museus: materials i activitats amb contingut de patrimoni pel públic escolar". Informatiu del sistema territorial del museu de la ciència i de la tècnica de Catalunya (no. 18, p. 8).

d) Paper at a conference

Arnedo, Joan; Herrera, Jordi (2009, March). "A security layer for JXTA core protocols". A: IEEE International Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems (CISIS) (pp. 463-468). Paper. New York: IEEE.

e) Doctoral thesis

Coll, Marta (2009, May). La modalitat de l'acció: anàlisi empírica, reformulació teòrica i representació computacional. Irene Castellón; Salvador Climent. Doctoral thesis presented at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

f) Unpublished document

Castells, Manuel (1993). La modernización tecnológica de las empresas industriales de electrónica y telecomunicaciones en Rusia (1991-1993). Unpublished document.

g) Laws, sentences, rulings and other regulations

Law 1/2008, of 20 February 2008, on agricultural agreements. Official Gazette of the Catalan Government, 3 March 2008, no. 5082, pp. 16654-16669.

h) Audiovisuals and graphic documents

Becoming Jane [film] (2009). Julian Jarrold (dir.) Barcelona: RBA Edipresse (120 min).

i) Online articles

Castaño, Jonatan (2010). "La desigualdad digital entre los alumnos universitarios de los países desarrollados y su relación con el rendimiento académico" [online article]. RUSC (vol. 7, no. 1). UOC. [Date consulted: 3 February 2010]. <http://rusc.uoc.edu/ojs/index.php/rusc/article/view/v7n1_castano

j) Other online documents

Torres, Anna (2009, April). Universitat xarxa a la xarxa [online report]. UOC [Date consulted: 3 February 2010]. <http://www.uoc.edu/portal/catala/la_universitat/sala_de_premsa/reportatges/2009/xarxes_old.html>

Also bear in mind that, apart from the UOC bibliographic format, there are many more besides. Academic journals normally require authors to put citations from articles in one of these formats. Some have become established as de facto standards in specific disciplines, such as:

 © Fundació per a la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya