A Practical Primer on Software Citation in Research
Abstract
Software underlies virtually all modern research, yet citation practices for software remain inconsistent and often inadequate. This short primer offers practical guidance in two directions: how to properly cite the software you use in your research, and how to make your own software easy for others to cite. We describe a seven-step workflow for citing software and a five-step workflow for making your software citeable, along with the community tools and resources that support each step. We also address common questions about what software, and how much, to cite. The guidance is field-independent; we use astronomy as a running example throughout, and readers in other disciplines can substitute the equivalent tools and conventions of their own community. Our goal is to lower the practical barrier to good software citation practice and to support a research culture in which software receives the scholarly credit it deserves.
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BibTeX
@misc{broekgaarden2026practical,
title = {{A Practical Primer on Software Citation in Research}},
author = {Floor S. Broekgaarden and Phil R. Van-Lane and Sasha Levina and Ahmed Bello and Sandra Gesing and Daniel S. Katz and Bhavesh Patel and Pengyin Shan and Samantha Teplitzky and Simon Thill and Peter K. G. Williams and Andrea Zonca},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.28622},
eprint = {2609.28622},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.28622},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Practical Primer on Software Citation in Research
AU - Floor S. Broekgaarden
AU - Phil R. Van-Lane
AU - Sasha Levina
AU - Ahmed Bello
AU - Sandra Gesing
AU - Daniel S. Katz
AU - Bhavesh Patel
AU - Pengyin Shan
AU - Samantha Teplitzky
AU - Simon Thill
AU - Peter K. G. Williams
AU - Andrea Zonca
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/23
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.28622
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.28622
AB - Software underlies virtually all modern research, yet citation practices for software remain inconsistent and often inadequate. This short primer offers practical guidance in two directions: how to properly cite the software you use in your research, and how to make your own software easy for others to cite. We describe a seven-step workflow for citing software and a five-step workflow for making your software citeable, along with the community tools and resources that support each step. We also address common questions about what software, and how much, to cite. The guidance is field-independent; we use astronomy as a running example throughout, and readers in other disciplines can substitute the equivalent tools and conventions of their own community. Our goal is to lower the practical barrier to good software citation practice and to support a research culture in which software receives the scholarly credit it deserves.
ER -