Citing Literature

The academic process is based - especially in the humanities - on the fact that one refers to the work of others, i.e. cites their work when relying on their intellectual property. It is not always easy for first-year students to assess what needs to be cited and what does not. As a rough guide, the following points can be made:

Must be cited:

• knowledge that you could not have come to just by thought (i.e. the research results of others);

• basic methodological and theoretical assumptions that form a foundation for your work;

• further thoughts that you have taken from the works of others and that do not belong to your own general knowledge.

Must not be cited:

• generalities (e.g. known historical context data);

• realizations of common sense (i.e. your conclusions or summaries);

• results of your own analyses.

Quotations in the Text

There are basically two possibilities for reference to parts of the works of other authors: direct and indirect quotations. As a rule, indirect quotations are more suitable for the use in papers, since they offer the opportunity to paraphrase statements in a meaningful way and to render them in a precise manner. Nevertheless, there are also purposes for which direct quotations are useful, such as the introduction of a special term, the adoption of a particularly apt and pointed quotation, or when a passage from a primary source is used to illustrate an observation or argument.

The formal embedding is done in different ways: direct (i.e. literal) quotations are introduced and closed with quotation marks. If quotation marks are used within the original quotation, they are replaced by single quotation marks.

Every change to the text must be marked. Such comments, also in the quotation, are usually marked by square brackets. Omissions, for example, are marked with […]. If it is necessary for the understanding of a sentence, it is also possible to add insertions within the quotation, which are marked with your initials. In this way, for example, references can be made: “He [Kant, F.E.] speaks of the subjectivity of our knowledge.” You can also comment on errors in the manuscript or noticeable anomalies with a [sic!] to make it clear that this error is not yours.

A short example will illustrate this. In a text the following passage needs to be quoted:

“In fine, it is not the case that Christianity and Judaism are two separate or different religions, but that they are two different kinds of things altogether. From the point of view of the church’s category formation, Judaism and Christianity (and Hinduism later on) are examples of the category religion, one a bad example and the other one a very good one, indeed the only prototype; but from a point of view of the rabbis’ categorization, Christianity is a religion while Judaism is not.”

This quotation can now be reproduced in different ways within your text:

• Separate block quotation (for quotations longer than about three lines - use sparingly): According to Boyarin, the category “religion” cannot be applied to Judaism from a Jewish point of view, as he explains:

  “In fine, it is not the case that Christianity and Judaism are two separate or different religions, but that they are two different kinds of things altogether. From the point of view of the church’s category formation, Judaism and Christianity (and Hinduism later on) are examples of the category religion, one a bad example and the other one a very good one, indeed the only prototype; but from a point of view of the rabbis’ categorization, Christianity is a religion while Judaism is not.” (Boyarin 2005, 354 f.)

  His criticism of the concept of religion is thus of a fundamental kind.

• Literal quotation in the paragraph:
  If one follows Boyarin’s criticism of the concept of religion, Christianity and Judaism can no longer be summarized under the common category “religion”: “In fine, it is not the case that Christianity and Judaism are two separate or different religions, but that they are two different kinds of things altogether” (Boyarin 2005, 354 f.).

• Interweaving into your own sentence: Boyarin goes as far as to say that “it is not the case that Christianity and Judaism are two separate or different religions, but that they are two different kinds of things altogether” (Boyarin 2005, 354 f.).

• Omissions:
  Boyarin stresses the different perspectives on the concept of “religion”: “From the point of view of the church’s category formation, Judaism and Christianity (and Hinduism later on) are examples of the category religion […]; but from a point of view of the rabbis’ categorization, Christianity is a religion while Judaism is not” (Boyarin 2005, 354 f.).

Indirect quotations do not require this approach. Here, a quoted sentence or section is reproduced in your own words and simply incorporated into the continuous text. Omissions or changes are permitted as long as they do not distort the meaning.

• Indirect quotation: If one follows the thesis that the category “religion” is in itself a Christian invention, then the obvious conclusion is that Judaism, for instance, from its internal perspective is not understood as a religion (Boyarin 2005, 354 f.).

• Reference: Even if the lines of argumentation differ in detail, Asad’s deconstruction of the concept of religion fits into a series of postcolonial critiques of the Christocentric concept of “religion” (see for instance Boyarin 2005).

Substantiating Quotations

It is part of academic integrity to explicitly name the literature to which one refers. This is not only due to the verifiability of your statements, but to the academic discourse in general: other scholars should also be able to participate in your work process and, if necessary, think further. Therefore, the correct citation of literature is an important aspect of writing an academic paper, and is also fundamental for your written work. Only correct citation enables lecturers to distinguish between your own thoughts and the statements made in the literature.

In order to substantiate the quotations used, you must provide the reader with such information that they could also find the quotation again. In the case of quotations from monographs, this includes at least the author, book title, place of publication, year of publication and page number of the quotation. In the case of other types of texts such as anthologies or magazine articles, further information must be included (see below).

All these details together usually result in a rather long list, which cannot be placed directly beside the quotation - there it would severely disturb the flow of reading. Therefore, two citation systems have become established which solve this problem differently, the “author-year system” (also called “American” or “Harvard” notation) and the “footnote system” (also called “German” or “historical” citation system).

This distinction affects both the way in which the sources of (direct or indirect) citations are indicated in the text and the presentation of literature in the bibliography. Additionally, it makes a difference what kind of literature is involved (see the section Forms of Academic Literature).

Footnote Citation Method

In the footnote system, the bibliographical references, as well as any additional remarks, are noted in footnotes. The first time a title is cited, it is quoted in full, as it appears in the bibliography. For all further citations, only the author’s name and a short title as well as the page number to which they refer are given.

If two citations of a source follow on from one another directly, i.e. if there is no reference to another source between the two citations, then instead of the abbreviation one writes “ibid.” instead of the short name. If the page number is identical to the previous entry, it can be omitted. If the page number is different, it should be given.

The footnote citation method is here demonstrated by the following example:

My argument is that there cannot be a universal definition of religion, not only because its constituent elements and relationships are historically specific, but because that definition is itself the historical product of discursive processes.

• First quote (full details):
  Thus Talal Asad writes “My argument is that there cannot be a universal definition of religion, not only because its constituent elements and relationships are historically specific, but because that definition is itself the historical product of discursive processes”¹

• Follow-up quote (short details):
  According to Talal Asad, religion cannot be defined universally, since any definition of the term itself is the result of a discursive process.²

• Direct follow-up quote:
  Talal Asad argues “that there cannot be a universal definition of religion […] because that definition is itself the historical product of discursive processes.”³

The bibliography lists all cited literature. Conversely, no literature should be included that is not used in the text. It thus serves as a clear summary of all literature cited. The bibliography must be formatted consistently. The exact presentation also depends on the citation method used. The bibliography is always sorted alphabetically according to the last names of the authors.

After the footnote citation method, the titles are given in the bibliography in exactly the same way as the first, complete details in the text. Only the name of the (first) author is preceded by the surname due to the sorting.

a) Monographs:⁴

Family name, Given name. Title. Edition (if applicable). Place: Publisher, Year.

Luckmann, Thomas. Die unsichtbare Religion. 2nd ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1993.

b) Chapters in edited volumes:

Family name, Given name (of the chapter). Title of the Chapter. In Title of the Volume, edited by Given name Family name (of the editor), page range of the chapter. Place: Publisher, Year.

Asad, Talal. The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category. In A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Michael Lambek, 114–32. Blackwell Anthologies in Social and Cultural Anthropology 2. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002.

Boyarin, Daniel. Hybridity and Heresy: Apartheid Comparative Religion in Late Antiquity. In Postcolonial Studies and Beyond, edited by Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul, Matti Bunzl, Antoinette Burton, and Jed Esty, 339–58. Durham/London: Duke University Press, 2005.

c) Journal articles:

Family name, Given name. Title of the Article. Journal Volume, no. Number (Year): Page range. https://doi.org/DOI.

Stuckrad, Kocku von. Discursive Study of Religion: From States of the Mind to Communication and Action. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 15, no. 3 (2003): 255–71. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006803322393387.

d) Encyclopedia articles:

Avi-Yonah, Michael. Adoraim. In Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1:420. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2007.

Family name, Given name. Title of the Lemma. In Encyclopaedia, Volume:Page range. Place: Publisher, Year.

Author-Year Citation Method

This method of citation, which is used primarily in the natural and social sciences, but is now also used in the humanities, cites references not in footnotes, but directly in the text. The footnotes are thus reserved exclusively for comments. In the text, sources are identified by an abbreviation consisting of the author’s last name and year of publication. The full reference can then be looked up in the bibliography with the help of this abbreviation.⁵

Religions are powerful not because they reveal transcendent truths or the effects of an ontologized “History”, but because they serve as instruments in the communicative formation of identity and provide people with a concrete script of action.

• First quotation:
  “Religions are powerful not because they reveal transcendent truths or the effects of an ontologized ‘History’, but because they serve as instruments in the communicative formation of identity and provide people with a concrete script of action” (von Stuckrad 2003, 269).

• Follow-up quotation:⁶
  According to some authors, the effectiveness of religions consists especially in supporting identity constructions and in concrete instructions for action (see for example von Stuckrad 2003, 269).

• Direct follow-up quotation:
  Therefore religions are “powerful […] because they serve as instruments in the communicative formation of identity and provide people with a concrete script of action” (ibid., 269).

Since the references in the text do not contain complete bibliographical information, the bibliography provides the relevant information for finding the literature in the author-year citation. In the author-year system, the year is placed directly after the author’s name to make it easier to look up the information in the text. Sorting is alphabetical.

a) Monographs:⁷

Family name, Given name. Year. Title. Edition (if applicable). Place: Publisher.

Luckmann, Thomas. 1993. Die unsichtbare Religion. 2nd ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

b) Chapters in edited volumes:

Family name, Given name (of the chapter). Year. Title of the Chapter. In Title of the Volume, edited by Given name Family name (of the editor), page range of the chapter. Place: Publisher.

Asad, Talal. 2002. The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category. In A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Michael Lambek, 114–32. Blackwell Anthologies in Social and Cultural Anthropology 2. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Boyarin, Daniel. 2005. Hybridity and Heresy: Apartheid Comparative Religion in Late Antiquity. In Postcolonial Studies and Beyond, edited by Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul, Matti Bunzl, Antoinette Burton, and Jed Esty, 339–58. Durham/London: Duke University Press.

c) Journal articles:

Family name, Given name. Year. Title of the Article. Journal Volume (Number): Page range. https://doi.org/DOI.

Stuckrad, Kocku von. 2003. Discursive Study of Religion: From States of the Mind to Communication and Action. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 15 (3): 255–71. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006803322393387.

d) Encyclopedia articles:

Family name, Given name. Year. Title of the Lemma. In Encyclopaedia, Edition (if applicable), Volume:Page range. Place: Publisher.

Avi-Yonah, Michael. 2007. Adoraim. In Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., 1:420. Detroit: Thomson Gale.

Historical and Primary Sources

Historical sources, such as the Bible, the Qur’an or other historical writings, cannot be cited according to the rules for secondary literature. Authorship is often unclear, and the same source is often available in different editions. The translation/edition used is of particular importance here and must be made clear in the source citation. The bibliography therefore combines information on the original source (which may have a title, but may not have a known author) and information about the edition used. Depending on the information available, specification is based on the following structure:

[Author,] Title of source, edited/​translated by editor/​translator, place (of issue) [year of riginal] year of issue.

Approximately:

Averroes, On Aristotle’s ‘Metaphysics’, translated and edited by Rüdiger Arnzen, Berlin: De Gruyter 2010.

The Qur’an, translated by A.J. Droge, Sheffield: Equinox 2013.

Shakespeare, William, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, London: Bloomsbury [1600] 2017.

Primary sources can be listed separately from the secondary literature used, in which case the bibliography includes the academic literature (secondary sources) used, while the source list lists the primary sources used.

For canonical religious works such as the Bible or the Qur’an, but also for some other source texts, standardized citation systems have become established. For the sake of simplicity, these can also be used in religious studies papers. The Bible is cited according to book, chapter and verse, for example, while the Qur’an uses sura and verse. In addition, the edition or translation used must be indicated. This can be done, for example, in the list of sources and in a footnote to the first source reference.

In the case of religious writings, there are often a large number of different versions available, including many that are not suitable for academic use. When selecting the edition to be used, care should therefore be taken to use an academic edition.

Internet Sources and Audiovisual Media

Special caution is advised when using internet-based sources. Just as a public lending library has a lot of novels etc. in addition to some individual academic works, not every website is suitable as an academic reference. However, since websites are not labelled according to the degree of their academic character, a critical assessment of online sources is important.

Roughly speaking, websites can be divided into three categories:

1. Academic online journals such as the Forum Qualitative Social Research (http://www.qualitative-research.net/) can be used like traditional print journals. Since complete authorial information is also available here, the citation is similar to other journal articles, with two modifications: Firstly, the Internet address (URL) and date of access must be given, and secondly, no page numbers are available for online sources, such that citation must be based on paragraph number or other criteria.

   Example:⁸
   Witzel, Andreas. 2000. “The Problem-Centered Interview.” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research 1 (1). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-1.1.1132.

2. Popular online encyclopedia websites such as Wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org/) are handy reference works to get an overview of a topic you are not yet familiar with. Such encyclopedias, however, are not quotable, just like printed popular encyclopedias: once you are treating the topic in an academic paper, you must look for academic sources for the topic.

3. Web pages as primary sources: most other pages online are not suitable as academic references. This especially applies to the websites of religious communities: these cannot be used as academic evidence for statements regarding content. However, under certain circumstances, such websites may be suitable as primary sources, i.e., as empirical material that is analyzed in the course of an academic study, but in such cases - as with any empirical study - the choice of material and the method of analysis must be explicitly described.

   In such cases, the source citation is less standardized, but it should be based on the usual criteria of completeness, consistency and traceability. The minimum indication for web pages therefore follows this structure:

   Title of the page, link of the page, date of your last access.

If the website is the homepage of an organization, but the text cannot be attributed to a single person, the organization can be listed as the author:

Church of Scientology International. n.d. “L. Ron Hubbard.” Accessed May 14, 2024. https://www.scientology.org/l-ron-hubbard/.

Apart from texts (and of course websites are texts, too) there are other media forms that may be used for academic work - though in most cases as primary sources. Since there are some special features to be considered and the citation of the different media types differs in detail, we would like you to refer to the “Audiovisual Citation Guidelines”, where concrete cases can be looked up: http://bufvc.ac.uk/projects-research/avcitation. The examples presented there still have to be adapted to the conventions used in each individual case, for example with regard to common punctuation.

Academic papers are today usually written on the computer. With increased technical possibilities, however, demands have also increased. Computer technology offers a whole range of possibilities to make the formal side of academic work simpler and at the same time produce respectable results.

If you invest a little time to learn some basic techniques, you can save a lot of time and, above all, a lot of trouble in the further course of your studies.