Literature and Citation
For seminar papers and theses in the field of marketing, it is generally recommended to use international journals that use an anonymous peer review process to ensure the scientific quality of the work.
Journals also vary in quality. Journal rankings help to assess the quality of journals. We recommend the VHB rating 2024 of the German Academic Association for Business Research.
Internet sources should be used very sparingly and selectively. In some cases, for example when dealing with current trends or statistics, they can be useful to support the relevance of a topic (e.g. news articles, company websites or Statista). However, internet sources should be avoided as evidence for definitions and theories or to illustrate the state of research.
The library of the Wiwiss faculty regularly offers training sessions for using Endnote.
Citavi and Endnote can be downloaded for free from the Zedat portal. Zotero is an open-source application.
The use of reference management software (e.g. Citavi, Endnote) is not essential, but highly recommended. Using such a programme will save you time and reduce the likelihood of citation errors.
However, before submitting your thesis, you should carefully review your references to make sure that you have included all the information you need. You should also check that the formatting (e.g. capitalisation, italics) follows the citation guidelines.
The list of references (also known as the bibliography) contains all the sources used in the text. It is not necessary to categorise sources, e.g. monographs, journals and online sources.
The list of references lists the sources alphabetically by the author's surname. If there are several texts by the same author or team of authors, they are sorted chronologically. If there are several publications by the same author or team of authors in the same year, the individual sources are distinguished by the addition of lower-case letters in the alphabetical order of the title, e.g. Churchill, G. A. (1979a); Churchill, G. A. (1979b). This will be retained when citing in the text.
An overview of how to use APA citation style in the bibliography can be found here.
In German-language papers, the abbreviations "p./pp." for page(s) and "Ed./Eds." for editor are replaced by the German abbreviations "S." for page(s) and "Hrsg" for editor.
If you are quoting from a secondary source rather than the original source - which should always be used (!) - and the original source is no longer available, both sources must be cited. The original work is cited first, followed by the reference 'quoted from' and the source from which the reference to the original source comes. Here is an example of APA style:
Penrose notes: “it is never resources themselves that are the ‘inputs’ to the production process, but only services that the resources can render” (Penrose, 1959, pp. 24-25, quoted from Vargo & Lusch, 2004, p. 326).
Direct quotations reproduce the content of a source word for word. It is important that the quotation is placed in quotation marks. Indirect quotations take up the content of a source in your own words. No quotation marks are used here. The source must be provided for both direct and indirect quotations.
Examples of direct quotations:
- Sherry (1983), for example, differentiates between whether the gift-giving is altruistically motivated, i.e. “where the donor attempts to maximize the pleasure of the recipient” (Sherry, 1983, p. 160), or agonistically motivated, i.e. “where the donor attempts to maximize personal satisfaction” (Sherry, 1983, p. 160)
- Attitudes thus describe “the extent to which one likes or dislikes something – for example a product, company, or brand” (Tormala & Brinol, 2015, p. 29).
- Customer gratitude is “the emotional appreciation for benefits received” (Palmatier et al., 2009, p. 1).
Examples of indirect quotations:
- In an unstandardized interview, there is no fixed list of questions. Instead, the interviewer adapts his questions according to the course of the conversation. A standardized interview, on the other hand, follows a predefined list of questions (Mayring, 2002, p. 66).
- The last function of gift-giving mentioned by Belk (1979, pp. 104-105) is socialization.
Correct citation is the proof of scientific work. This means that references to existing literature are complete and understandable. It reflects both the honesty of the author and the ability to support an argument with appropriate sources. Whenever a foreign text or idea is used, it must be cited. This applies to both direct and indirect quotations.
In general, the Marketing Department recommends quoting from scientific journals and suggests the use of certain electronic databases as well as press and web sources for literature searches. A list of these can be found here. The two most important sources for literature research are electronic databases and library catalogues (e.g. university library). In addition, there are a number of other sources. The focus of the literature search depends on the topic.
Examples of electronic databases:
- Primo
- Business Source Premier (EBSCO)
- Web of Science
Search engines: e.g. Google Scholar
For seminar papers and theses in the Department of Marketing, you should use the American Psychological Association (APA) citation style. References are given as short citations directly in the text (not as footnotes). In any case, care should be taken to ensure consistency of citation throughout the paper.
If you use a reference management software (e.g. Mendeley, Citavi, Endnote, Zotero), you can set APA as your citation style. This will automatically use APA in the text and list of references.