Referencing styles for citing scientific databases : a study on APA, MLA, and Chicago/Turabian formats

Abstract

To cite online documents, using databases and following standard referencing styles have become a disciplinary need of scholars. In journal articles, theses, and dissertations especially, it has become a common practice to cite databases. This study examined how three major referencing styles handle the citation of electronic documents obtained from databases, focusing on the citation elements such as the database name, URL, the descriptive phrase or record locator, etc.The study found that the APA, MLA, Chicago & Turabian formats have been developed with less effort and concern about database related citation guidelines than database providers have done. Database providers have dominated the circulation of research literatures in the market and gradually gained control over the right of annotation for citation format to some extent. To sustain the authority of the standard referencing styles, the original institutions responsible for the citation formats should amend their rules for citing scholarly electronic databases in a clear and timely manner.