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International Journal
of Dark Tourism Studies

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Academic Citations & Referencing 

Citing Your Sources

If you directly or indirectly use our scholarship from International Journal of Dark Tourism Studies, then you MUST cite our articles/journal according to usual academic conventions.

 

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What Is a Citation?

A citation is a reference that allows you to acknowledge the concepts, ideas and sources* you use in a formal academic paper. A citation enables your reader to locate and validate those sources through the key information it provides.

 

Citations are placed both in the text and in an organised list at the end of the text (often called a Reference List or Bibliography). If you use a footnote or EndNote system, then this can be self-contained without an organised list at the end of your text.

 

* Source material might come from books, journal articles, speeches, websites, on-line articles, films, government publications, legal proceedings, maps, and so on.

 

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When Do I Have to Cite?

If you quote an author or authors, even if you are only borrowing a single key word, you must tell your reader where you found the information. If you use an author's words exactly as they appear in the original research paper, then this is a "direct quotation" or paraphrase that always requires a citation.

 

You also must cite a source: 

  • if you restate an idea, thesis, or opinion given by an author;

  • if you restate an expert's theory or opinion;

  • if you use facts that are not common knowledge;

  • or, if you need to provide an informational or explanatory note.

 

These restatements of an author's words, thoughts, or ideas will take the form of either:

  • a summary;

  • or a paraphrase.

 

A direct quotation (indicated by opening and closing quotation marks) will include author(s) name and year of publication with page number(s) where the source is cited from. A corresponding reference list should also be provided at the end of your work.

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DIRECT QUOTATION EXAMPLE:

Dark tourism may be defined as "travel to sites associated with death, disaster or difficult heritage" (Stone, 2017: p.4). 

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INDIRECT QUOTATION EXAMPLE:

Dark tourism has been defined as travel to visitor heritage sites that are connected with death or disaster (Stone, 2017).

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When Is It Okay Not to Cite?

Facts that are common knowledge do not have to be cited. For example:

  • The Queen of England is also Head of the Church of England.

  • Tourism involves travel away from a usual place of residence.

 

Statistics and information that can easily be found in several sources and are not likely to vary from source to source do not have to be cited. For example, the population of the United Kingdom is 62 million.

 

Dictionary definitions that are common knowledge and vary little from source to source do not have to be cited.

 

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Why Cite?

It is important to cite when borrowing the ideas and thoughts of other authors for several reasons. For instance:

 

Citing sources:

  • builds credibility in your work by showing you are not alone in your opinions;

  • gives you a chance to show that you have thought about and investigated your topic;

  • gives your reader the information he or she needs to verify your source or to find more information on the subject; and

  • allows you to give credit where credit is due.

 

Please note that not citing your sources is academically dishonest and may lead to charges of plagiarism.

 

In addition, citations are integral to the scholarly literature. The scholarly literature on a topic such as dark tourism is like a huge conversation that can include many experts from around the world and from years gone by.

 

When an individual writer credits his/her sources, (s)he ties his/her work to the larger scholarly discourse. Because citations identify intellectual links throughout scholarly literature, they can be helpful not only when writing but also when conducting research.

 

Citations enable you as a researcher to:

  • verify the facts and opinions set forth in a piece of writing;

  • identify additional sources that may delve more deeply into a subject;

  • distinguish the ideas of various experts regarding a specific topic;

  • measure the influence of one thinker upon another; and

  • trace the evolution of an idea as it passes from scholar to scholar, from culture to culture, and from era to era.

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How do I Provide a Citation?

A book citation generally includes the name of the author (whether personal or corporate), the title of the book, the place of publication, the name of the publisher, and the year the book was published. For example, citing a book:

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  • Stone, P.R. (2017) The Palgrave Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies, Palgrave Macmillian: London.  

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Or citing a specific book chapter within a edited book:

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  • Seaton, A.V. (2017) The History of Dark Tourism. In P.R.Stone (Ed) The Palgrave Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies, Palgrave Macmillian: London, pp. 15-28.  

 

An article citation generally includes the author or authors of the article, the title of the article, the name of the periodical or journal in which the article appears, the date the journal was published, the volume and/or issue number of the journal, and the page number (or range of page numbers) for the article. For example:

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  • Stone, P.R. (2012) Dark Tourism and Significant Other Death: Towards a model of mortality mediation. Annals of Tourism Research, Vol 39(3), pp. 1565-1587. 

 

A Website citation may include the author of the website (if one is given; this can be a person, a corporation, or an organization), the title of the website, the entity that published the website (if available), the date the website was created or last updated, the date that the website was accessed, and the address (i.e., the Uniform Resource Locator [URL]) of the website on the Internet. For example:

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What Style of Citation do I Use?

How the parts of a citation go together depends on the type of reference (e.g., book, journal article, website, etc.) as well as on the style used by that particular subject discipline.

 

Citations are displayed in specific styles, such as Harvard, APA, MLA, and Chicago, because the consistent formatting makes it easier for other researchers to find the sources you used.

 

All our research papers from International Journal of Dark Tourism Studies include a suggested citation style (Harvard) and a specific reference.

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