Qualitative Study on Narrative and Parenthetical Context-Based Multiple In-text References: A Systematic Review of In-text Citations

Clear and concise presentation of facts and findings, in well-packaged and systematic way using the approved standards, is one of the concerns of scholars; and, facts and findings packaged in this manner used in scholarly publication for researchers is called academic writing. One element which distinguishes academic writing from other forms of writing, apart from being evidenced-based, is reference and referencing which give the work genuineness. Many researchers, especially novice mistake one for the other between reference and referencing. Referencing is more technical than reference. Novice researchers often acknowledge sources imperfectly, especially when citing different ideas from different sources embedded within a sentence. This paper reviews the distinction between the two concepts, and provides illustrations of the science of acknowledging sources for embedded ideas with multiple sources, paying special attention to all technicalities. Reference is a detailed list of sources cited within that comes at the end of the work. Referencing is the science of how sources from different works are acknowledged within the work. There are two approaches of referencing: sentence-inclusion (narrative or integral) citation and sentence-exclusion (parenthetical or non-integral) in-text citation. Each of the approaches has some rules in accordance with the number of authors, and why to cite. Therefore, reference and referencing are two distinct concepts. Hence, researchers have a choice to select from the different styles and should conform to their rules in both in-text citations and end-of-list references.