<p>I am currently writing a scientific paper on research I've been doing for the last year and a half. I have written some in the past, but I eventually hope to publish this one. I have a question about how to write up the methodolgies section. Do there need to be citations and references for the different techniques or procedures you use if they are based off others? For example, there are several techniques I have used in the lab that my mentor showed me and that are very specific to the needs of my experiment. Obviously, they were developed by somone other than me. They are not common knowledge in the sense that you can find them in basic textbooks, but they are fairly widely used in my field. I haven't cited really anything in the methodologies section in past papers, but now I'm worried that this could have been like plagiarism. So what is the basic rule for citing methodologies/techniques?</p>
<p>ba bump</p>
<p>anyone???????</p>
<p>I'm not sure, but personally I'd cite it just in case. Plagiarism is a bad thing to get accused of...</p>
<p>Yes, you must cite the prior work. And you should try to identify the chronologically first report of the methodology you used or adapted. This may be different from the citation you actually used.</p>
<p>Citations can be laborious to manage, but there are tools that make it extremely easy. I use a product called EndNote.</p>
<p>So it has to be cited even if its a common technique for that field? I have found reference to it in several sources, so wouldn't that be common knowledge? And I've also seen it in some papers uncited.</p>
<p>it depends what technique. you can write "This was done as previously described [reference]" If its like, using a microscope then you don't need to. But if it was, say, preparing a very specific assay, then you would need to cite it.</p>
<p>Think of it this way: would the information be useful to you, an outsider, trying to repeat the work that is being described. Thus, in a sense, you are writing a scientific recipe.</p>