How to Cite Literary Sources?

You must always cite when using others' thoughts, formulations, results.

With citation, you indicate from where you obtained the information or data.

If you don't do this, you're plagiarizing.

When Should I Cite?

• you quote verbatim from someone else
• you extract keywords from someone else's written or spoken text.
• you use established facts, statistical data, or figure illustrations created by others.

Don't quote everything verbatim, only when you're presenting a definition.

What Should Be Cited?

Briefly, concisely, everything that isn't your own thought needs to be cited.

There are primary, secondary, and tertiary sources.

Primary source: research results, studies publishing theoretical research, professional books.

Secondary source: more detailed publications (e.g., textbooks suitable for reviewing classic professional literature)

Tertiary source: summarize large amounts of primary and secondary sources (encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks) - Wikipedia

Almost every study is already available online, so you should always try to find the original sources.

In case you've searched everywhere to find the original publication but still couldn't, then you can also cite an abstract.

But be careful, don't make the mistake of wanting to build your entire thesis on abstracts!

Yes, it's an easier solution to cite only abstracts, since they are publicly available in most cases, however, it can lower the quality of your thesis.

Therefore, always strive to find the ORIGINAL PUBLICATION.

How to Cite?

Most Hungarian universities generally accept two types of citation systems.

When We Cite in Footnotes:

In this case, the citation should be marked at the end of the sentence with a number or asterisk in superscript and the explanation should be given at the bottom of the page (in a footnote).

The footnote can naturally contain not only a reference to another text, but also supplementary information, background information, and comments.

When We Cite in Text:

With in-text or APA or Harvard style citations, the citation is given in parentheses following the quoted text. Here we refer to the author, year, and quoted page number, while the exact details of the authors and works are contained in the reference list inserted at the end of the thesis.

So, what we write in parentheses - name, year, and page number - designates a specific source whose exact location can be found in the reference list.

The form of citations depends on the number of authors and whether we want to cite in the sentence text or at the end of the sentence, in parentheses.

A couple of examples to make it clearer:

First in text: "According to the experiment results of Nagy, Kovács, and Horváth (2004)...".

Further reference in text: "Nagy and colleagues (2004) further established that...".

First reference at end of sentence, in parentheses: "The study established that...(Nagy, Kovács, Horváth, 2004)."

Further reference in parentheses: "The study further established that...(Nagy et al., 2004)."

In Table Form:

I know it doesn't look great, but while citing, in table form you'll find it easier to locate the appropriate method for you.

Let's take a few tangible examples:

These citations should already be listed in the "reference list" at the end of your thesis.

• Kiss, B., Járomi, M., Telek, L., Virág, R., Jász, A., Kajos., L. (2016). Measurement of cervical spine section and factors influencing its development from elementary school to graduation. Health Academy, 7 (2), pp. 94-98.

This is a citation from a journal, written by 6 people.

1. We always write the last name first, then abbreviate the first name.
2. We continue with the year of publication in parentheses.
3. The title of the article, the journal's volume number, in parentheses, which issue number of that year follows.
4. Finally, the page number.

Next example:

• Noll, M., Silveira, AL., Alevar ISd. Evaluation of factors associated with severe and frequent back pain in high school athletes. PLOS ONE Online 2017 February 21. Cited: 2019. 11. 08. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0171978

This is a website citation. It's similar to the journal one in many ways, but there are differences.

1. We start the same way with names.
2. The research title follows.
3. Then the website name (marked as online).
4. Then we continue with the date when it was published.
5. This is followed by the date when you cited it.
6. Finally, the so-called "doi" number, which when clicked displays the article on the website.

Summary: Cite even the last end-of-sentence punctuation! If you cite during/at the end of text, pay attention to the number of authors, and when writing in the reference list, just pay attention to whether you're citing a journal/online/book. Simple as ABC!