This Citation Platform Gets Lost in a Crowded Field

Proper citation is a daunting task for many students. Don’t tell anyone, but it’s not my favorite thing either. If I had a magic wand, I would replace all references with standardized, shortened URLs (there, I said it).

In the meantime, librarians have a wide array of resources available to guide students. Cite Them Right (CTR) is a new online platform available via annual subscription that provides citation guidance for users in eight styles: American Psychological Association (APA) 7, Chicago 18 and 17, Harvard, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) 4 and 3, Modern Language Association (MLA) 9, Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA), and Vancouver. The platform does not automatically generate citations; its standout feature is its interactive tutorials, which feature several modules about referencing and avoiding plagiarism.

Product Overview/Description

The CTR platform is based on the Bloomsbury book of the same title by Richard Pears and Graham Shields. Citation guidance pages include formatted examples of both in-text citations and references as well as a “You try” section, where users can create their own citations (Figure 1).

As noted above, the platform’s interactive, self-paced tutorials, which appear on their own website, linked from the platform, are excellent. One tutorial series is provided for each citation style. The topics in each series include determining when to cite a source, identifying common knowledge, avoiding plagiarism, paraphrasing, and others. The tutorials are nicely chunked and allow users to explore topics in the order they prefer. They also feature interactive elements (e.g., “cards” that turn over after being clicked—see Figure 2) and a variety of checkpoint questions with immediate feedback (e.g., traditional and grid multiple choice, matching, and drag-and-drop fill in the blank questions). Each tutorial includes a final assessment.

CTR also includes brief articles and videos with advice about common questions, including how to format quotations. I observed some minor issues in this section. In the “Setting out quotations (APA 7th)” article, page numbers are correctly abbreviated as “p.” in the first example (quoting a single page), and “pp.” in the third (quoting multiple pages). However, there is no explanation given about the distinction, which could leave a student feeling confused and potentially misled. The article “How do I reference a source quoted in another author’s work? (Secondary referencing in APA 7th)” addresses an important aspect of referencing that students often ask about and is generally correct. However, it fails to mention that the year of the secondary source should be included in the in-text citation when it is available, according to the latest American Psychological Association (APA, 2022) guidance. The video “How to keep track of your sources” seems as if it would be useful to students; but it essentially explains that one should track sources, rather than giving strategies for how.

It is difficult to provide accurate advice on so many citation styles, particularly as they are subject to revisions over time by their organizations. Despite some small errors and issues, overall, the platform’s guidance is sound, if less detailed than what would be found in the style manuals themselves.

User Experience

I tested CTR using Google Chrome on a Windows desktop and a Safari mobile browser on an iPhone. Regardless of access method, the website, including all interactive elements in tutorials, was easily navigated and functioned smoothly.

A “breadcrumbs” style menu at the top of the page makes navigating across the platform easy. From the main landing page, a menu at the top of the page gives the user two points of entry to the citation guidance: they can choose a reference style or click on “Browse Categories” to select the type of work to be cited. A search bar with advanced search options is also available.

I began my exploration of CTR by selecting “APA” from the top menu, which led me to a page of Quick Links with citation guidance for different categories of works. I was able to expand and explore each category through an accordion-style table.

When I tried navigating to the citation guidance through “Browse Categories,” I was presented with a landing page where I selected “Printed Books” from the Books category. This linked to the citation guidance page shown in Figure 4 below.

Every citation guidance page includes formatted examples of both in-text citations and references as well as a “You try” section, where users can replace a formatted example with the details for their own source then either copy and paste or email themselves the result.

In the desktop version of the citation guidance pages (shown in Figure 4), a left-side column provides links for further exploration, including: a drop-down menu to quickly switch between reference styles for a given type of work, general guidance about the selected reference style, and recently viewed pages. The mobile version of the site provides these navigation menus at the bottom of the page.

Instructors can link citation guidance within a learning management system (LMS) and integrate the tutorials into a course using Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) 1.3, which allows them to track student progress and view grades for tutorial assessments within their course gradebook. It also allows students to access the tutorial assessments without their having to set up an individual login. Without the LTI integration, instructors can still access a gradebook and usage monitoring tool through the tutorial website.

CTR aims to achieve the Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2 (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/). A VPAT is available.

Contracting and Pricing Provisions

CTR is available for purchase as an annual subscription, with pricing based on institutional category and full-time equivalent. Annual costs range from $2,864 to $13,870, depending on institution size, and consortial discounts are available.

Interlibrary loan of individual documents is allowed, and the vendor provides COUNTER compliant use statistics. Text and data mining are not permitted without prior written consent.

Authentication Models

Users can log in with a username and password (which, as noted above, are required for completion of the assessment module within the interactive tutorials section unless the tutorial is integrated into a course management system). Shibboleth, Open Athens, and IP authentication are also supported.

Competitive or Related Products

With so many free resources available for creating citations, including the excellent built-in features provided by many databases and online catalogs, it is difficult to demonstrate the need for a paid subscription service designed primarily to give citation guidance.

In addition to the built-in citation generation available for many library resources, free third-party websites for creating citations are popular with students. EasyBib and Citation Machine (now essentially identical, since being purchased by Chegg) both generate citations with a fill-in-the-blank style that is more intuitive than the text replacement method used in CTR. Both services also include a search interface that allows users to pull in at least some information about their sources automatically, which CTR is notably lacking.

Reference managers like Mendeley, Zotero, and EndNote do not provide citation or plagiarism prevention guidance. However, if the primary need is to create accurate citations, this class of software not only generates in-text citations and bibliographies but can also be used to organize personal digital libraries. These tools also allow users to easily switch between reference styles, even after they’ve created a document.

If instructors want their students to manually create citations, the existence of the aforementioned tools may foil their wishes. Nevertheless, the various style manuals are the most reliable source from which to create accurate citations (or double-check automatically generated ones). The APA maintains an excellent blog that gives a wide variety of examples, and some libraries and organizations (notably, the Purdue Online Writing Lab) offer excellent free citation guidance online. Print copies of style manuals remain the most cost-effective option for libraries and their patrons. For online access, some publishers also offer ebooks and/or online resources.

Critical Evaluation

CTR’s main selling point for educational institutions is the interactive tutorials for citation guidance and academic integrity.

The citation guidance portion of the platform might be of more limited interest to students, who may understandably prefer to automatically generate citations whenever permissible. As an intermediate step, it would have been useful if the platform allowed users to search by title to automatically retrieve information for their citations, a feature familiar to users of EasyBib or Citation Machine.

Failing automation or semi-automation of citations, an explanation on the citation guidance pages about how to find citation information for each type of work cited would have been useful. But this is lacking. The authors of the book upon which the platform is based provided a brief video (“Where can I find the relevant information for my reference?”), but it only covers books. In the video, the authors hold up a print book to demonstrate where citation information can be found, but it is difficult to see enough detail. Cutting in close shots of a copyright page (verso) with the relevant information highlighted would have been a more effective way to convey the information to an unfamiliar audience.

Recommendation

CTR may be of value at undergraduate and community colleges where professors commonly require students to individually purchase the style manual for their disciplines, or which would like to offer supplemental online resources for students related to citations or academic integrity. But to create or double-check their citations, patrons (and library budgets) may be better served by using a reliable citation generator in combination with a style manual or other trusted online resource for verifying style and format.

References

American Psychological Association. (2022, July). Secondary sources. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/secondary-sources