A Note on Definitions

Here are some common terms that will be referred to in this module. These terms can have some ambiguity depending on context, so they are defined here.

Citations

Citations identify specific sources of information, whether from an academic journal article, book, website, interview, etc. Below is a citation of an academic article on CubeSat propulsion in the journal Acta Astronautica in the IEEE citation style:

[1] Ciaralli, S., Coletti, M. and Gabriel, S. (2016). Results of the qualification test campaign of a Pulsed Plasma Thruster for Cubesat Propulsion (PPTCUP). Acta Astronautica, 121, pp.314-322.

Citation Styles

Citation styles specify order of appearance of publication date, title, page numbers, and author name in scholarly citation. Popular citation styles such as American Psychological Association (APA) and Modern Language Association (MLA) are commonly used in high school and the humanities.

Some common citation styles in the sciences are the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Most academic journals have their own individual citation styles, meaning there are thousands of styles out in the wild Links to an external site..

Works Cited Page

The last section of an academic work that includes a list of articles, books, etc, consulted during research, and sometimes called a References List. These articles are listed by their citations, in whatever citation style is appropriate for the researcher.

Bibliography

A Bibliography is a comprehensive list of all works that were included in the research process, regardless of whether they lead to direct quotes or citations in the finished work. Bibliographies are more commonly used in books than in scholarly articles.