APA Citation Guide for ROS 2 Module

This guide outlines the APA (7th edition) style for citing sources within this Docusaurus module, including both inline citations and a dedicated References section at the end of each chapter.

1. Inline Citations

For direct quotes or paraphrased content, include the author's last name and year of publication in parentheses. If available, include a page number for direct quotes.

Examples:

• Parenthetical citation: ROS 2 provides a flexible framework for robotics development (Smith, 2023).
• Narrative citation: Smith (2023) highlights the flexibility of ROS 2 for robotics development.
• Direct quote: "ROS 2 offers robust inter-process communication capabilities" (Jones, 2022, p. 45).

Multiple Authors:

• Two authors: (Chen & Lee, 2021)
• Three or more authors: (Garcia et al., 2020)

No Author:

• Use the title and year: ("ROS 2 Documentation," 2023).

No Date:

• Use "n.d." for "no date": (Brown, n.d.).

2. References Section

At the end of each chapter, a "References" section will list all cited sources in alphabetical order by the first author's last name. The format varies by source type.

Examples of Common Source Types:

• Book: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work. Publisher.

  • Example: Siciliano, B., & Khatib, O. (Eds.). (2016). Springer handbook of robotics (2nd ed.). Springer.

• Journal Article: Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume(issue), pages. DOI

  • Example: Quigley, M., Conley, K., Gerkey, B., Faust, J., Foote, T., Leibs, E., ... & Smith, R. (2009). ROS: an open-source robot operating system. In ICRA workshop on open source robotics (Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 5). IEEE.

• Webpage/Online Document: Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of work. Site name. URL

  • Example (Official ROS 2 Documentation): Open Robotics. (n.d.). ROS 2 Documentation. Retrieved December 4, 2025, from https://docs.ros.org/en/humble/

• Conference Proceeding: Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year, Month). Title of paper. Paper presented at the Title of Conference, Location.

  • Example: Macenski, J., Foote, T., Gerkey, B., & Wever, T. (2020). ROS 2: The next generation robot operating system. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Paris, France.

3. Handling ROS 2 Versioning

When citing official ROS 2 documentation, always specify the target ROS 2 distribution (e.g., Humble, Iron) if the link is version-specific. For general concepts, a link to the main documentation portal is sufficient. In the References section, note the access date for online resources, especially for rapidly evolving documentation.

4. Glossary Integration

Key terms defined in the Module 1 Glossary (docs/module1/glossary.md) will be linked inline to their definitions on the glossary page using Docusaurus markdown linking conventions, e.g., [ROS 2](/docs/module1/glossary#ros-2). This ensures consistency and easy access to definitions for beginners.