COS 226 Code Citation Standard

General Rules

If you copy or adapt code from the course material (booksite, textbook, lecture slides, lecture videos, precept notes, etc.)^†, include a citation inside your code as follows:

Each citation must appear in a separate multi-line comment (/* */).
Begin the citation with “@citation” followed by one of the following:
- “Copied from:” for code that is verbatim copied from the course material.
- “Adapted from:” for code that is based on code from the course material.

When citing code from the textbook, include the page number and the book edition. For example:

/* @citation Copied from: Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne.
 *           Computer Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach.
 *           Addison-Wesley Professional, 2016, pp. 194.
 */

When citing code from an online resource (booksite, lecture slides, lecture videos, precept notes, etc.), provide a link to the resource and the date it was accessed. For example:
```
/* @citation Adapted from: https://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/11model/BinarySearch.java.
 *           Accessed 10/30/2019.
 */
```

Where should the citation be placed?

In the header comment (after the description) if the citation concerns the whole file.

Immediately after the class definition if the citation concerns the whole class. For example:

public class Test {
    /* @citation Adapted from: Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne.
     *           Computer Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach.
     *           Addison-Wesley Professional, 2016, pp. 194.
     */

     // ... instance variables and methods
}

Immediately after the method header if the citation concerns the whole method. For example:

public int BinarySearch(int[] a, int k) {
    /* @citation Adapted from: https://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/11model/BinarySearch.java
     *           Accessed 10/30/2019.
     */

     // ... method implementation
}

Before the piece of code if it is not a full file, class or method. After the piece of code, add the comment: /* @end-citation */. For example:

/* @citation Copied from: https://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/11model/Knuth.java.
 *           Accessed 10/30/2019.
 */

int n = a.length;
// Shuffle a[] using Knuth's shuffle
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
    int r = (int) (Math.random() * (i + 1));
    Object swap = a[r];
    a[r] = a[i];
    a[i] = swap;
}
/* @end-citation */

† The citation rules apply even if the code is copied or adapted from outside the course material. Copying or adapting code that is not from the course material is a violation of course policy. Not properly citing it is plagiarism.