CSE Style Guide

This guide contains some examples of common citation formats in CSE Style (Council of Science Editors, formerly called the CBE Council of Biology Editors). 

The Council of Science Editor's (CSE) style is used for citing references in the physical and life sciences. 

The CSE style has two systems of citation, the Citation-Sequence system and the Name-Year system.  This guide will focus on the Name-Year system. 

Your CSE citations will include in text citations, as well as a Literature CIted at the end of your paper.

CSE was formerly called CBE style.

 The purpose of documentation is to:

• Identify (cite) other people’s ideas and information used within your essay or term paper.
• Indicate the authors or sources of these in a Literature Cited list at the end of your paper.

For complete citation information, see Scientific Style and Format: the CSE manual for authors, editors and publishers.

This cast shows you how to create a CSE/CBE citation for a book. Visit the Gregg-Graniteville Library at http://library.usca.edu

In all areas and in all types of research and academic writing (college assignments and papers regardless of subject area), it is necessary for you to cite your sources.  Why? 

Citing your sources is expected and will:

• Help readers identify and locate the sources you used in your assignment or paper.
  

Readers do look at the reference list found at the back of your paper to locate a source you have cited, to verify the information, or to learn more about the topic. A proper citation includes all of the bibliographic elements necessary for a reader to locate a source.

• Provide evidence that your position is well-researched and you have synthesized what you have learned with your prior knowledge.
  

Academic writing is based on solid research. Citations offer you the opportunity to demonstrate that your ideas, argument, or explanation is well researched.

• Give credit to the author of ideas and positions that are not your own to avoid plagiarism.

Providing accurate credit to those whose ideas, words, and thoughts you use is not only respectful to those authors, but also helps you avoid plagiarism

Here are three different ways you can incorporate your sources throughout your assignments and papers to consciously avoid plagiarizing.

1. Direct quote

When you use or copy the exact words or section of words from an author, you can surround that direct quote by quotation marks. Include the correct citation acknowledging the original author in your sentence.

2. Summary

Write a summary using your own words of the ideas or the text you want to use. Be original without using the words of the original work and be sure you cite that statement.

3. Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is similar to a summary. It just means taking what you have read and rewriting it in your own words. You must cite that paraphrase.

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Please note that this archived guide is no longer maintained by library staff. For current citation information by experts, please refer to APA, CSE, Chicago or MLA guides.