If you’re planning on creating an article for Demand Studios, you will need to reference at least one source in your article, regardless of how much you personally or professionally know about the subject. This helps editors verify the information in the article for accuracy, any bias and proper accreditation.

Editors can reject articles with incorrectly written references, so make sure to do it right the first time to cut down on your rewrites.

How to Credit a Reference in a Demand Studios Article

Now let’s get down to the nitty gritty–crediting your reference correctly within the article’s text.

When should you credit the reference? Rule of thumb: if you’re listing a specific study, statistic or an uncommon fact, it needs a reference. For example, “depression is a commonly diagnosed mental illness” probably doesn’t require accreditation (it’s common knowledge), but “depression affects an estimated 19 million Americans” does.

To credit the above example properly within a Demand Studios article, write this:

“According to WebMD.com, depression currently affects an estimated 19 million Americans.”

Alternatively, this also works:

“WebMD.com estimates 19 million Americans currently suffer from depression.”

Good accreditation includes starting a sentence with “According to”, “Named source reports” or “Named source says”, with the nearly exact or exact fact following it. You should never credit a source by writing “WebMD.com says depression affects millions of Americans” or “19 million Americans currently suffer from depression (source: WebMD.com)”.

If your source is a website, state specifically it is from a website. If it is from a study published online, state when it was conducted and who conducted it, such as “According to a 2008 study published in the named source”.

Remember, be exact–vagueness is confusing, can be misleading and often gets rejected by editors. Demand Studios prides itself on good content, and being specific improves the quality of your article.

How to Credit a Reference in Your Article is part of the Demand Studios Tutorials series on WJR. To see all of the articles listed in this tutorial, click here.