Occasionally we get emails from people who would like to cite our blog posts. Usually, these requests are framed as ‘is this going to be published in a journal?’. It’s no surprise that people are more comfortable citing the traditional academic literature. But researchers are increasingly citing blog posts. Indeed, some of our blog posts have been citedĀ inĀ published academicĀ literature.
There are plenty of guides out there for citing blog posts. You may like to refer to them for specific formattingĀ styles. Cite This For Me is a useful tool for generating references in a variety of styles. Here I’d like to provide aĀ few specific recommendations for citing posts from this blog.
1. Cite the author
Our blog posts are written by lots of different authors, not by ‘the blog’. The author’s name – assuming they have not claimed anonymity – will appear at the top of the blog post. Let’s take a recent example. To start with, your citation should look something like:
Watson, S. (2017). Variations in NHS admissions at a glance. The Academic Health Economists’ Blog. Available at: https://aheblog.com/2017/01/25/variations-in-nhs-admissions-at-a-glance/ [Accessed 8Ā Mar. 2017].
2. Use our ISSN
As of this week, the blog now has its ownĀ International Standard Serial Number (ISSN). This number uniquely identifies and distinguishes the blog. Our ISSN isĀ 2514-3441. You can find it at the bottom of the sidebar and on our About page. So your citation could become:
Watson, S. (2017). Variations in NHS admissions at a glance. The Academic Health Economists’ BlogĀ (ISSN 2514-3441). Available at: https://aheblog.com/2017/01/25/variations-in-nhs-admissions-at-a-glance/ [Accessed 8Ā Mar. 2017].
3. Use WebCite
Unlike journal articles, websites can change. One of our authors could (in principle) completely change the content of their blog post after publishing it. More importantly, it is possible that our URLs may change in the future. If this wereĀ to happen, the link in the reference above wouldĀ become redundant and the citation would not be useful to readers. What needs to be cited, therefore, is the blog postĀ at the time at which you accessed it. Enter WebCite. WebCite is a service that archives a webpage and provides a permanent link for citation. This can be achieved by completing an archiving form. Our citation becomes:
Watson, S. (2017). Variations in NHS admissions at a glance. The Academic Health Economists’ Blog (ISSN 2514-3441). Available at: https://aheblog.com/2017/01/25/variations-in-nhs-admissions-at-a-glance/ [Accessed 8Ā Mar. 2017].Ā (Archived by WebCiteĀ® at http://www.webcitation.org/6ooALaGyF)
4. Check the comments
Finally, authors may choose to subsequently publish their blog post elsewhereĀ in another format or to upload it to a service such as figshare in order to obtain a DOI. Check the comments below a blog post to see if this is the case as there may be an alternative source that you might prefer to cite.
But as ever, if you’re struggling, get in touch.
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