Citing and referencing: Social media

A guide to the styles recommended by Monash schools and departments for students and researchers

Social media

Blog

*Blogs are NOT acceptable academic sources unless as objects of research 

Reference list Krawetz, N 2011, The hacker factor blog, web log, viewed 15 November 2011, http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/

Paraphrasing - Author prominent

Krawetz (2011) uses a blog to discuss advanced forensic image analysis techniques.
Paraphrasing - Information prominent Blogs may give credence to opinion, in some cases with supporting evidence; for example the claim that many images of fashion models have been digitally enhanced (Krawetz 2011).
Quoting - Author prominent See blog post for quotes
Quoting - Information prominent See blog post for quotes

 

Blog post

*Blogs are NOT acceptable academic sources unless as objects of research
*List the author’s name as given (including nicknames)
Reference list Patterson, M 2011, 'Open-access megajournals – find out more in Estonia', The official PLoS Blog, web log post, 20 June, viewed 25 October 2011, http://blogs.plos.org/plos/2011/06/open-access-megajournals-%e2%80%93-find-out-more-in-estonia/
*include both the date the blog entry was posted and the date viewed

Paraphrasing - Author prominent

Patterson (2011, para. 2) argues that the peer review process does not evaluate the significance of a work.
*pinpoint the specific information
Paraphrasing - Information prominent Publication rates in open-access journals have increased over the last four years (Patterson 2011, para. 4).
*pinpoint the specific information
Quoting - Author prominent Patterson (2011, para. 4) reports that PLoS ONE 'will publish as much as 1.5% of all articles indexed in PubMed in 2011'.
*pinpoint the quote
Quoting - Information prominent Open-access journals are challenging the 'primacy of the [traditional] journal as the mechanism for the organization of published research' (Patterson 2011, para. 7).
*pinpoint the quote

 

Wiki entry

*Wikis are NOT acceptable academic sources unless as objects of research

Reference list 'Cretaceous', 2011, Wikipedia, wiki article, viewed 12 November 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous
*use the date of the last revision to the wiki article as the publication year

Paraphrasing - Author prominent

*avoid author prominent as wiki articles cannot be reliably attributed to any one (or more) persons
Paraphrasing - Information prominent Information is framed for a general audience ('Cretaceous' 2011).
*cite the title of the wiki and the date of last revision
Quoting - Author prominent *avoid author prominent as wiki articles cannot be reliably attributed to any one (or more) persons
Quoting - Information prominent Language style is basic; for example, the use of parallel construction in the repeated modal verb 'modern crocodilians can live as scavengers and can survive for months without food' ('Cretaceous' 2011, para. 30).
*pinpoint the quote
*cite the title and the date of last revision

 

Update on social network (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, other)

*Social media are NOT acceptable academic sources unless as objects of research

Reference list Gillard, J 2011, Facebook update, 11 November, viewed 24 November 2011, https://www.facebook.com/juliagillard/posts/263639040354656

Paraphrasing - Author prominent

Gillard's (2011) strategy included using Facebook to announce the plan to deliver a pay rise to employees in the social services sector.
*pinpoint the specific information
Paraphrasing - Information prominent The marketing of the proposal also targeted a large internet audience (Gillard 2011).
*pinpoint the specific information
Quoting - Author prominent Gillard (2011, para. 1) further broadcast the message online that proposed wage increases would benefit '150,000 of Australia's lowest paid workers'.
*pinpoint the quote
Quoting - Information prominent The government used online forums to declare that it was 'prepared to provide over $2 billion' (Gillard 2011, para. 1).
*pinpoint the quote

 

You Tube (or similar) video

*YouTube or similar are NOT acceptable academic sources unless as objects of research

Reference list gsmokeyjoe 2007, Stephen Fry on the joys of swearing, online video, viewed 17 January 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_osQvkeNRM&feature=youtu.be

Paraphrasing - Author prominent

*avoid author prominent format as the user who uploaded the video is not necessarily the author
Paraphrasing - Information prominent For the purpose of entertainment, Stephen Fry has argued for the value of swearing (gsmokeyjoe 2007).
Quoting - Author prominent *avoid author prominent format since the user who uploaded the video is not necessarily the person being quoted
Quoting - Information prominent During his musings Stephen Fry provocatively declared 'the people I know that swear the most tend to have the widest vocabularies' (gsmokeyjoe 2007, sec. 00:36).
*use the counter in YouTube to pinpoint the start of the quote

 

Bulletin boards, Forums, Usenet, Email lists

Reference list Adams, D 2011, ‘Re: PCA with VERY large number of landmarks?’, list server, 5 October 2011, Morphmet, viewed 30 November 2011 http://www.mail-archive.com/morphmet%40morphometrics.org/msg02412.html

Paraphrasing - Author prominent

Adams (2011, para. 4) noted the usefulness of Principal Coordinates Analysis in this situation.
*pinpoint the specific information
Paraphrasing - Information prominent Computation time is a major issue with very large covariance matrices (Adams 2011, para. 3).
*pinpoint the specific information
Quoting - Author prominent Adams (2011, para. 2) notes that, in this case, 'the issues related to Rao's curse of dimensionality are less applicable'.
*pinpoint the quote
Quoting - Information prominent Principal Coordinates Analysis produces the 'matrix of pairwise distances between objects' (Adams 2011, para. 4).
*pinpoint the quote