How to cite - Civil and Environmental Engineering - Guides de recherche

The basics of how to cite properly

It is important to document every idea, statistic, quote or paraphrase that you use from somewhere else, to give credit to authors, let your reader know the basis for what you're saying, avoid plagiarism. This is called citing or referencing your sources. In science and engineering, we cite each source in two places:

In-text citation: a short citation in the body of the paper at the point where your paper relies on it. If you are using or writing about a source in multiple places in your paper, you'll need to repeat your in-text citation multiple times.
Complete citation: the full details at the end of the paper, in the bibliography.

Formatting citations properly for a particular style

To cite a source, you can't just paste the URL into your paper - you need to include specific information in a specific order. A citation style is a particular way of formatting and presenting references and citations The information to include depends on what kind of source you are citing - a book, journal article, news website, etc. So it's important to know what kind of source you have!

There are different styles used in science and engineering, and your professor may require a specific style, but they always want you to follow one in particular. The two most common citation styles in science and engineering are APA style (an 'author-date' style) and IEEE (a numbered style). There are other styles in particular fields (ASME ASCE) that are similar to these. The key features are summarized below.

APA style (author-date type)

In-text citations include the authors' surnames and the year in round brackets. (Author A, Author B & Author C, 2022)
Bibliography citations are ordered alphabetically by the last name of the first author listed. Generally, citations follow the format below, however the details vary by item type.

Author surname, A.B. & Author surname, J.K. &... (Year or date). Title of the item. Publication, conference, website or organisation, Details (dependent on type of item). URL or DOI.

For more help, refer to the examples further down this page, an Online guide with examples prepared by Kwantlen Polytechnic, or the Official APA website with more examples

IEEE Style (numbered type)

In-text citations are a number in square brackets, such as [1]. The first source referenced in your (final) paper should have the number 1, followed by 2, 3 etc. If you refer to a source multiple times in the same paper, you'll repeat the citation.
Bibliography citations are ordered numerically from [1] to [n].Generally, citations follow the format below, however the the details vary by item type.

[#] A.B. Author surname, J.K. Author surname and... , "Title of the item". Publication, conference, website or organisation, Details, Year and possibly month. URL or DOI.

For more help, refer to the examples further down this page, Guide to IEEE style by Purdue University, or the Official IEEE guide (note that the official guide is not that easy to understand)

Creating citations

You can create these formatted citations

Manually, by typing them out and referring to a guide
Using a citation manager program like Zotero that helps generate citations. More details below.
Using a citation generation website. Zbib is a good one.
Using a citation provided by a journal website

But no matter how, you need to make sure the citation is correct and has the necessary info. Tools sometimes make mistakes, especially with references that aren't journal articles and conference papers.

Citing examples in engineering

These examples show how to format a citation for common engineering documents in the two most popular styles in engineering - APA style (author-date) and IEEE style (numbered). If your professor doesn't have a preference for a style, one of these is a good choice.

Journal Article

	APA style (author, date)	IEEE style (numbered)
In-text citation	Another study found that..... (Perkins, Bird, Jacobs, & Devoy, 2016)	Another study found that..... [1]
Full bibliography entry	Perkins, W. T., Bird, G., Jacobs, S. R., & Devoy, C. (2016). Field-scale study of the influence of differing remediation strategies on trace metal geochemistry in metal mine tailings from the Irish Midlands. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 23(6), 5592–5608. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-5725-7	[1] W. T. Perkins, G. Bird, S. R. Jacobs, and C. Devoy, “Field-scale study of the influence of differing remediation strategies on trace metal geochemistry in metal mine tailings from the Irish Midlands,” Environmental Science and Pollution Research, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 5592–5608, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-5725-7

Conference Paper

	APA Style (author, date)	IEEE Style (numbered)
In-text citation	Another study found that..... (Névéol et al., 2017)	Another study found that..... [1]
Full bibliography entry	Névéol, A., Anderson, R. N., Cohen, K. B., Grouin, C., Lavergne, T., Rey, G., … Zweigenbaum, P. (2017). CLEF eHealth 2017 Multilingual Information Extraction task overview: ICD10 coding of death certificates in English and French. CLEF 2017 Evaluation Labs and Workshop: Online Working Notes, 1866. Retrieved from http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1866/invited_paper_6.pdf	[1] A. Névéol et al., “CLEF eHealth 2017 Multilingual Information Extraction task overview: ICD10 coding of death certificates in English and French,” in CLEF 2017 Evaluation Labs and Workshop: Online Working Notes, Dublin, Ireland, 2017, vol. 1866 [Online]. Available: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1866/invited_paper_6.pdf.

Report (technical report, government report, ...)

	APA Style (author, date)	IEEE style (numbered)
In-text citation	Another study found that..... (Comella-Dorda, Dean, Morris, & Oberndorf, 2004)	Another study found that..... [1]
Full bibliography entry	Comella-Dorda, S., Dean, J. C., Morris, E., & Oberndorf, P. (2004). A process for COTS software product evaluation (No. CMU/SEI-2003-TR-017; pp. 86–96). Retrieved from Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University website: https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?assetid=6701	[1] S. Comella-Dorda, J. C. Dean, E. Morris, and P. Oberndorf, “A process for COTS software product evaluation,” Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, CMU/SEI-2003-TR-017, 2004 [Online]. Available: https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?assetid=6701.

Standard or Code

	APA style (author, date)	IEEE style (numbered)
In-text citation	According to the concrete design code... (Canadian Standards Association, 2019)	According to the concrete design code...[1]
Full bibliography entry	Canadian Standards Association. (2019). Design of concrete structures (CSA standard A23.3:19). Retrieved from https://subscriptions.techstreet.com/products/836680	[1] Design of concrete structures, CSA Standard A23:3, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://subscriptions.techstreet.com/products/836680.

Book Chapter (where different chapters in the book are written by different authors)

	APA style (author, date)	IEEE Style (numbered)
In-text citation	Another study found that.....(Fallon and Carter, 2016)	Another study found that..... [1]
Full bibliography entry	Fallon, J. B., & Carter, P. M. (2016). Principles of Recording from and Electrical Stimulation of Neural Tissue. In Neurobionics: The Biomedical Engineering of Neural Prostheses (pp. 89–120). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118816028.ch4	[1] J. B. Fallon and P. M. Carter, “Principles of Recording from and Electrical Stimulation of Neural Tissue,” in Neurobionics: The Biomedical Engineering of Neural Prostheses, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2016, pp. 89–120 [Online]. Available: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118816028.ch4.

Book written by a single author

	APA style (author, date)	IEEE style (numbered)
In-text citation	Another study found that..... (MacDowell, 2012, p. 34)	Another study found that..... [1, pp. 34]
Full bibliography entry	MacDowell, L. S. (2012). An Environmental History of Canada. Retrieved from https://www.ubcpress.ca/asset/9296/1/9780774821018.pdf	[1] L. S. MacDowell, An Environmental History of Canada. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2012 [Online]. Available: https://www.ubcpress.ca/asset/9296/1/9780774821018.pdf

If you didn't get the document from the internet (for example, if it's in print, or if someone emailed you the PDF), then simply don't include a URL.

You are required to include page numbers in the in-text citation anytime you are using a direct quote. But you should also use page numbers anytime you are citing a specific part of a longer source (such as a book or report).

For help on how to cite other types of sources, see the full style guides for APA or IEEE, linked elsewhere on this page.

Guides to citing, and article formatting, by discipline

Many fields have their own particular citation style or article formatting - it can be confusing! There is no single correct style, but it is essential that consistency be observed within any report you write. Your citation manager (like Zotero or Mendeley) will include pre-set styles for most journals and publishers. (You may have to find it under 'Get more styles' or something similar).

Always ask your professor or supervisor if they want you to use a specific style.

Discipline	Style Guide	More Details
Engineering - Chemical	AIChE ACS	AIChE Guidelines & Style Manual ACS Style Guide - including references chapter
Engineering - Civil	ASCE	ASCE Publication Guide, reference section Quick Guide (prepared by the University of Texas)
Engineering - Mechanical	ASME	ASME Journals
Engineering - Electrical and Computer	IEEE ACM	IEEE Editorial Style Manual, and Reference Guide ACM Citation Style
Science and engineering - general	CSE (Council of Science Editors) style	Print guide is available in the library Quick guide by McGill library
General	APA, MLA, Chicago	See the library research guide on citation styles APA reference official page