4 Research and Citation Styles
Advanced Research Skills: Conducting Literature and Systematic Reviews (2nd Edition) 
Kelly Dermody, Cecile Farnum, Daniel Jakubek, Jo-Anne Petropoulos, Jane Schmidt, and Reece Steinberg (Toronto Metropolitan University)
2022
Licence: CC BY 4.0
A short course for graduate students to increase their proficiency in conducting research for literature and systematic reviews. After taking the mini-course graduate students will understand how to conduct their review, how to execute appropriate searches, manage their results, and demonstrate strategic reading skills. Module 1 provides a quick overview of the different types of academic reviews and the steps involved in conducting them. Module 2 demonstrates how to formulate a research question and how to search for sources. Module 3 discusses how to select and organize sources. Finally, Module 4 outlines techniques for reading and assessing the quality of sources. The course contains interactive H5P activities for students to test their learning. Students have access to a workbook of reflective activities to document their research process. The intended outcome is to ensure graduate students understand how to conduct and manage their own research for their academic success and future careers.
Format: Pressbooks webbook
Includes: Research Roadmap Workbook [Google Doc – make a copy]
APA Style Citations – 7th edition
Ulrike Kestler (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
2021
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
The tutorial covers why it is important to use citations, elements of common source types, and how to create reference and in-text citations based on the 7th edition APA guidelines. This tutorial can also be used as a reference resource.
Formats: Pressbooks webbook, EPUB, PDF, and more
Chicago Style Citations – 17th edition
Ulrike Kestler and Sigrid Kargut (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
2021
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
The tutorial covers why it is important to use citations, elements of common source types, and how to create footnotes or endnotes and bibliographic citations based on the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. This tutorial can also be used as a reference resource.
Format: Pressbooks webbook
Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research, 1st Canadian Edition
Lindsey MacCallum (Ohio State University), adapted by the University of Regina
Licence: CC BY 4.0
Canadian adaptation by the University of Regina, with engaging graphics, compelling examples, and easy-to-understand explanations that make Choosing and Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research, a valuable, open-access resource for completing research-based writing assignments and projects. Students will be better equipped to tackle the challenges of developing research questions, evaluating and choosing the right sources, searching for information, avoiding plagiarism, and much more.
Formats: Pressbooks webbook, EPUB, PDF, and MOBI
Reviews: Open Textbook Library
Comprehensive Literature Searching in the Health Sciences
Peter Farrell, Nigèle Langlois, and Camille Cottais (University of Ottawa)
2025
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
This research guide is designed to support users in conducting comprehensive searches of scholarly literature, particularly within the health sciences. It is organized around a step-by-step approach to developing and executing a rigorous search strategy: formulating a research question, gathering synonyms, using Boolean operators, identifying subject headings, and selecting appropriate databases. Emphasis is placed on testing, translating, and documenting searches, as well as managing results and accessing full texts.
Beyond database searching, the guide encourages supplementing with targeted and grey literature searches. It also includes tutorials for major health science databases such as Medline, Embase, CINAHL, and others. To support skill development, the guide provides worksheets and handouts to assist with search planning and execution. It is a practical and structured tool for students and researchers aiming to conduct thorough and methodologically sound literature searches.
Formats: LibGuide with some downloadable documents in Word, Excel, and PDF
Doing Research: A Student’s Guide to Finding and Using the Best Sources
Celia Brinkerhoff (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
2019
Licence: CC BY 4.0
A modules-based approach to learning research skills that emphasizes the reflective nature of information discovery, the contextual basis for evaluating that information, and a recognition that information has value.
Formats: Pressbooks webbook, EPUB, PDF, and more
Reviews: Open Textbook Library
Engineering and Information: Research Skills for Engineers
Katie Harding, Alanna Carter, Shelir Ebrahimi, and Eva Mueller (McMaster University)
2022
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Format: Pressbooks webbook
Health Professions Education Research Primer
Edited by Teresa M. Chan (McMaster University)
2022
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Formats: Pressbooks webbook and PDF
How to Read a Scientific Paper in Biomedical Sciences
Jinane El-Hage and Emilio I. Alarcón (University of Ottawa)
2025
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Navigating scientific literature is challenging, particularly for students unfamiliar with technical terms, jargon, and dense content. Many struggle to distill core messages or connect findings to broader scientific discussions. Beyond the built-in complexity of the papers themselves, the field of science often fails to consider other important challenges affecting comprehension. These include excessive jargon, language limitations, cultural variations in cognition, neurodivergence, and other factors related to readability. Despite abundant information, the lack of formal instruction in reading and interpreting research papers leaves students ill-equipped to engage critically with scientific literature. There is no one size-fits-all approach to tackle this issue. This book addresses these challenges by offering a structured guide to reading, summarizing, and analyzing scientific papers. Piloted in a mandatory science communication course at the University of Ottawa, the tools and strategies presented have been designed to enhance comprehension and critical thinking. Here, we build on case studies and open-access peer-reviewed publications from our team to guide students through key strategies for accurately identifying critical sections of research papers, preparing meaningful summaries, and articulating insightful questions for further discussion. Unlike other resources that focus solely on medical journals, this book provides strategies applicable across disciplines, reflecting on the interdisciplinary nature of today’s scientific inquiries. Additionally, this book compares student-generated summaries with ChatGPT outputs, highlighting the limitations of AI and the value of human insight in scientific interpretation. This Open Educational Resource empowers students to navigate and communicate science effectively.
In this book, we offer four interactive tools to guide and simplify the reading and comprehension of scientific literature. A dedicated repository web page hosts these tools, along with two separate files showcasing real examples of students who used the summary report sheet to build their summaries of two different papers. These examples are compared with summaries generated by ChatGPT using the same sheets. All documents are available as interactive PDFs and Word files, organized in the order they appear in the book. For the best experience, we recommend opening the PDF versions with a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader.
The first tool is the Words/Concepts Definitions Template, which allows students to record unfamiliar terms or concepts and define them in their own words.
The second tool, the Checklist, serves as a reading guide to help readers critically and actively evaluate a paper’s readability and quality during the initial reading.
The Score System builds on the checklist and provides a more advanced framework to objectively assess various sections of a paper, culminating in an overall score.
The final and primary tool is the Summary Report Sheet, designed to help users create a structured summary of the paper. This tool solidifies key concepts and minimizes the need to revisit the original paper, as the summary will serve as a standalone reference.
Finally, we included two files featuring examples of completed summary sheets by two different students—each file includes summary sheets of two papers filled by students and the same ones filled by ChatGPT—to illustrate the comparison.
Formats: PDF and Word
Library 160: Introduction to College Level Research
Iowa State University Library Instruction Services
2021
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
You will learn how scholarly information is produced, organized, and accessed; how to construct and use effective search strategies in a variety of web tools and scholarly databases; how to choose finding tools appropriate to the type of information you need; critical thinking skills in the evaluation of resources; and best practices in the ethical use of information.
Formats: Pressbooks webbook, EPUB, and PDF
Reviews: Open Textbook Library
Referencing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers
Lorisia MacLeod (James Smith Cree Nation and The Alberta Library) and NorQuest College Library
2021
Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0
Guide on citing and referencing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers in APA 7th Edition and MLA 8th Edition. Based on the templates suggested by Lorisia MacLeod (James Smith Cree Nation) in the 2021 article, “More Than Personal Communication: Templates For Citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers,” KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies 5 (1): https://doi.org/10.18357/kula.135.
Format: Online (LibGuide)
Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices
Anol Bhattacherjee (University of South Florida)
2012
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0
This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any course on research methods.
The contents and examples are designed for anyone interested in behavioral research (not just information systems people), and so, the book should appeal to most business programs, social sciences, education, public health, and related disciplines.
Also available in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
Format: PDF
Reviews: Open Textbook Library
University Writing
Auburn University
Last updated 2021
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Resources that University Writing at Auburn University has developed to support students and instructors across the disciplines in their writing and writing instruction. We define writing broadly, so you will find resources on ePortfolios, visual design, professional communication, and presentations in addition to traditional writing tasks like reflective writing, literature reviews, peer review, and editing and proofing.
Formats: Online, Word, and PDF
Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers
Michael A. Caulfield (Washington State University Vancouver)
2017, updated 2021
Licence: CC BY 4.0
This is an unabashedly practical guide for the student fact-checker. It supplements generic information literacy with the specific web-based techniques that can get you closer to the truth on the web more quickly.
This guide will show you how to use date filters to find the source of viral content, how to assess the reputation of a scientific journal in less than five seconds, and how to see if a tweet is really from the famous person you think it is or from an impostor. It’ll show you how to find pages that have been deleted, figure out who paid for the website you’re looking at, and whether the weather portrayed in that viral video actual matches the weather in that location on that day. It’ll show you how to check a Wikipedia page for recent vandalism and how to search the text of almost any printed book to verify a quote. It’ll teach you to parse URLs and scan search result blurbs so that you are more likely to get to the right result on the first click. And it’ll show you how to avoid baking confirmation bias into your search terms.
Format: Pressbooks webbook
Reviews: Open Textbook Library
Writeonline.ca
University of Guelph, University of Waterloo, and Wilfrid Laurier University
Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0
Write Online was designed by writing experts from three universities who work with students on a daily basis. Our guides introduce you to the particularities of these genres, provide practical strategies for you to try in your own writing, and use model texts to help you better understand the organization, format, and language used in each of these types of writing. Writing genres covered: case study report, lab report, literature review, and reflective writing.
Format: Online
Writing Guide for Students of History
Lori Jones and Jennifer Dekker (University of Ottawa)
2024
Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0
This writing guide sheds light on the questions frequently asked by the student community about the research and writing processes in history.
Format: Pressbooks webbook
