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Ecology Writing Guide |
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Citing the best source
Cite a source that strongly supports your point, rather than one that just mentions the idea briefly.
For example, how could you cite to support this sentence?
| “The colour vision system of flies involves two types of photoreceptors, allowing perception of four colour categories.” |
You could cite the original study that discovered flies have two photoreceptor types (Hardie & Kirschfeld 1983) or a paper that reviews all the literature on fly vision (Lunau 2014). Don’t cite a study that mentions the idea but focusses on a slightly different hypothesis, eg, Kelly & Gaskett (2014), which tests how flower colours are seen by flies, but provides no new data on fly vision.
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This tiny NZ orchid's intense UV is invisible to humans but super bright to flies! (Kelly & Gaskett 2014) |
Hardie, R. C. & Kirschfeld, K. (1983). Ultraviolet sensitivity of fly photoreceptors R7 and R8: Evidence for a sensitising function. Biophysics of Structure and Mechanism, 9, 171-180.
Kelly, M. M. & Gaskett, A.C. (2014). UV reflectance but no evidence for colour mimicry in a putative brood-deceptive orchid Corybas cheesemanii. Current Zoology, 60, 104-113.
Lunau, K. (2014). Visual ecology of flies with particular reference to colour vision and colour preferences. Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 200, 497-512.
