Int J Endocrinol Metab. 2020 April; 18(2):e102622. doi: 10.5812/ijem.102622. Published online 2020 April 27. Review Article The Principles of Biomedical Scientific Writing: Citation Zahra Bahadoran 1, Parvin Mirmiran 2, Khosrow Kashfi 3 and Asghar Ghasemi 4, * 1Nutrition and Endocrine Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2Department of Clinical Nutrition and Human Dietetics, Faculty of Nutrition Sciences and Food Technology, National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 3Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, City University of New York School of Medicine, New York, United States 4Endocrine Physiology Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran *Corresponding author: Endocrine Physiology Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Email:
[email protected] Received 2020 March 12; Revised 2020 April 14; Accepted 2020 April 14. Abstract Citation, the act of properly referring to others’ ideas, thoughts, or concepts, is a common and critical practice in scientific writing. Citations are used to give credit to own work, to support an argument, to acknowledge others’ work, to distinguish other authors’ ideas from one’s work, and to direct readers to sources of information. A good citation adds to the scientific prestige of the paper and makes it more valuable to the reader. The citation has three basic elements: quoting from others, an in-text reference to the source, and bibliographic details of the source.