What is the ISNAD Citation Style?

The ISNAD Citation Style is a Turkey based academic writing and referencing style developed to be used in studies carried out in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences such as Anthropology, Archaeology and Art History, Geography, Language and Literature, Education, Philosophy, Folklore, Law, Economics and Administrative Sciences, Theology, Psychology, Arts, Social Work, Sociology and History.

What does it include?

The ISNAD covers the basic principles of academic research and writing, definitions of publishing ethics and types of academic ethics violations, and the rules and examples of referencing forty-one different data types from book to music sheet.

Why is it called ‘ISNAD’?

The word “isnād” (pl. asānīd) is derived from the root “sanad (pl. asnād)” in Arabic, meaning “to rely on, to lean, to put one’s trust in” in dictionary. Therefore, it means “to ground, to base upon, to take the word back to its owner, to indicate the way through which a word or a narration has been arrived, or to take it back to its origin”. It is used to question and indicate the source of a word as in the example of “what is the origin of your word?” In this sense, the word “ISNAD” was chosen as a name for the citation style by the majority (70.4%) of editors who work for the journals publishing in the field of Theology in Turkey.

What is the main idea of the ISNAD Citation Style?

In the ISNAD Citation Style, the bibliographic information of a cited source, following the general rule of its use in the relevant field of social science, can be given as follows: in the text as “Author – Date” information or in the footnote as “Author –Title” information). As for bibliography, it is essential to separate bibliographic components by inserting a dot (.).

Why is it necessary?

Citation is one of the essentiality of the scientific nature of knowledge as well as a requirement of respect for intellectual property and copyrights. It is a crime of publication ethics when the original source of the text is not cited (plagiarism). Therefore, the sources of a scientific study must be cited correctly and completely with its bibliographic components so that other researchers can easily access to them. The ISNAD citation style, which has been developed in Turkish language and is free to be used, is more convenient and easier to be learnt and used by the middle school and university students, as compared to the other citation styles, that are English in origin and are unaffordable.

What is the purpose?

The ISNAD Citation Style has been developed to meet the citation requirements in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences for Turkey and other Turkic Republics.

What is the benefit?

The use of the ISNAD Citation Style will help minimizing errors in footnote citations and bibliographies. It will also detect the citations and the degree of influence by standardizing the citation style in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences in Turkish speaking countries.

Where and when was it developed?

The ISNAD Citation Style has been developed as a part of the project called “The National Citation Project for Ilahiyat” and supported by the administration of Sivas Cumhuriyet University within the scope of Sivas Cumhuriyet University Religious Sciences Implementation and Research Center (DIMER) between 2017- 2018.

Who can use it?

The ISNAD can be used by anyone conducting studies in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Is it free of charge?

The ISNAD’s printed manual, PDF text and online version are all free and open to access.

Is the ISNAD Citation Style compatible to Zotero, Mendeley and Endnote?

Template plugins in the ISNAD Citation Style, compatible to library and reference management softwares like Zotero, Mendeley and EndNote.