How to Cite a Product

Leslie Rietveld | March 12th, 2015 | Stress Reducers

The number of citations for a specific product has increasingly become the measuring stick for choosing a good quality bioreagent. Scientists want to see whether others have used the product successfully in their specific application or tissue type.

However, researchers themselves are making this metric incredibly inaccurate. Often times, only the manufacturer of a product is cited in a paper. This leaves readers scrambling to determine which product was actually used, potentially looking at hundreds of possibilities.

A recent study found that less than half of researchers provide enough information about an antibody to enable others to find and purchase the same product1.

So what information should you cite in order for fellow researchers to purchase the same product?

We’ve outlined the basics for properly citing antibodies, however the same guidelines can be used for any bioreagent.

The Anatomy of a Product Citation

 

Learn how to cite a product correctly by including the following information:

1. Full product name
Include the host, clonality (monoclonal or polyclonal), and the clone number if applicable. Therefore if the catalog number changes, or the manufacturer goes out of business, fellow researchers can still track down a similar product.
Example:
  • HSP70 Mouse Monoclonal Antibody, Clone C92F3A-5
  • HSP70 Antibody
– We have 48 different products this could refer to, therefore this is not enough information.
2. Manufacturer
Including the manufacturer is pretty standard practise for most product citations, however make sure you spell the company name correctly.Be sure to also include the city and country of the company headquarters, as there are often a few companies with the same name, so the location helps pinpoint the specific manufacturer.
Example:
  • HSP70 Mouse Monoclonal Antibody, Clone C92F3A-5 (StressMarq Biosciences, Victoria, Canada)
  • HSP70 Antibody (Stress Marq)
3. Catalog code
Catalog codes do sometimes change, however if you are using a product such as a polyclonal antibody that does not have a specific clone number attached to it to distinguish it from other similar products, you must include the catalog number.
Example:
  • HSP70 Mouse Monoclonal Antibody, Clone C92F3A-5 (StressMarq Biosciences, Victoria, Canada, Cat. # SMC-100B)
  • HSP70 Mouse Monoclonal Antibody (Stress Marq)
– Even if you include the host and the clonality, without the catalog number, researchers would still be left wondering which one of possibly 10 antibodies you used.
4. Lot/batch number

The lot number is probably the last thing people think to include, however products can vary batch to batch, especially polyclonal antibodies. Therefore including the lot number allows other researchers to ask for the specific batch as well.

Example:
  • HSP70 Mouse Monoclonal Antibody, Clone C92F3A-5 (StressMarq Biosciences, Victoria, Canada, Cat. # SMC-100B, Lot#S130234)
  • HSP70 Mouse Monoclonal Antibody (Stress Marq)

The final product citation may seem long, especially if you are using many different products, but in the end you want researchers to be able to find and use the same reagents.

Also be sure to list the product in the appropriate section in your methods section. Fellow researchers need to be able to easily determine what application, species, and tissue type the product was used with.

Now get out there and write some papers with the correct product citations! The research world will thank you!

1. Vasilevsky, N. A. et al. PeerJ 1, e148 (2013).

 

 

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