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INSTRUCTIONS
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This citation audit template is meant to be used as a tool to diversify the race/ethnicity of the authors cited in your publications and/or your lab.

The template is locked to prevent accidental edits to the instructions or formulas created. To gain editing access, you will go to: File > Make a copy. This will save a copy of this spreadsheet onto your own Google Drive account, giving you full editing access.
DO NOT DOWNLOAD TOOL TO EXCEL AS FORMULAS MAY NOT WORK OUTSIDE OF GOOGLE SHEETS

Disclaimer: The Stereotypes, Identity, and Belonging Lab does not claim for this to be the best or only tool for diversifying citations. We recognize that there are limitations in our methodology and many areas for improvement. We encourage researchers to adapt this tool to the needs of their lab (e.g., collecting additional information on each author, collecting information on other identities).
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Step 1
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Once the references list for your publication has been finalized, begin by completing the information in the red columns (A-E) in the "Original list" tab. All authors included in the references will be included, with each author getting one row.

For each author, enter:
- Their full first name
- Their full surname(s)
- Whether they were first author on a source you cited
- Whether the source type was academic or non-academic
- And any notes about the author (e.g., sometimes the author uses their middle name and sometimes they don't, author went through a name change)

You will have to revisit the original paper to get each author's full first name as APA references only use initials for first and middle names. Having author's full first and surnames will facilitate the process for Step 2.

Example:
Lombard, E. J., Azpeitia, J., & Cheryan, S. (2021). Built on uneven ground: How masculine defaults disadvantage women in political leadership. Psychological Inquiry, 32(2), 107-116.

This reference would result in three entries (rows), one for each of the authors --> 1) Ella J. Lombard, 2) Jovani Azpeitia, 3) Sapna Cheryan
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Step 2
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Once all authors have been entered into the red columns of the "Original list" tab, move on to completing the blue columns (F-H).

If available, a team of research assistants (RAs) and/or collaborators can help speed up this step in the process. A column with "RA Name" has been designated to keep track of who completes each row.

RAs will conduct internet searches to estimate the race/ethnicity of each author. Use resources such as: faculty pages, organization affiliations, biographies, interviews, etc. Our RAs found Google Scholar, LinkedIn, university websites, Wikipedia, and books to be the most helpful. If none of these sources are found, then RAs made their best guess of an author's race/ethnicity based on an image of the author (if available).
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Step 3 (optional; for lab-wide citation audits)
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If you would like to conduct a citation audit for your lab's publications, then you can use the green columns on the far right of the "Original list" tab.

Complete Steps 1 and 2 for ALL authors included in the references of your lab's publications. If you have a large number of publications, you can select the most recent publications (e.g., papers published within the last three years) to give you a baseline assessment.

Once all authors have had their information entered for the red and blue columns, you can indicate which publication(s) each author is cited in (i.e., "0 - No", "1 - Yes"). Remember to replace "Publication #X" with a naming scheme that best suits your lab (e.g., "Lombard, Azpeitia, & Cheryan, 2021"). You will create as many columns as needed for the number of publications that are to be included in the larger citation audit.
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Step 4
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Begin by visting the "Summaries" tab to see the "Before Audit" table. This table will give you a breakdown of the racial/ethnic breakdown of the authors cited in your paper, by frequency and proportion, including a breakdown for just the first-authors cited in the paper you're doing the citation audit for. The left-most two pie charts will give a visual representation of the proportions listed in the "Before Audit" table. This spreadsheet has been setup to auto-populate the summary tables and figures in the "Summaries" tab.

Next, copy and paste the rows entered in the "Original list" tab for the blue and red columns over to the same columns in "Revised list" tab. No special "paste" function is needed - simply highlight the cells using Cmd+C (Mac)/Ctrl+C(PC) and then paste using Cmd+V(Mac)/Ctrl+V(PC). As citations are replaced, remove authors no longer mentioned from the "Revised list" tab and add any new authors (repeating Steps 1 and 2) in the "Revised list" tab. Below are more detailed instructions and resources that can be used to diversify your citations.

Questions to consider when working to diversify citations:
- Are you citing too many White authors?
- Can you replace or add to your existing citations with URM authors?
(Resources: BIPOC-Authored Psychology Papers; List of Faculty/Postdoc Mentors for Black (and URM) Scientists; GMU Library “Finding Diverse Voices in Academic Research”)
- How many URM authors in your research area are you familiar with? Can you expand that list so that you have a higher baseline familiarity?
- Consider an interdisciplinary citation strategy; you are not limited to citing scholars within your field.
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Step 5
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Once the "Revised list" tab has been completed, the "Summaries" tab will give completed tables and figures of the racial/ethnic demographic breakdowns before and after the citation audit.

The "Change" table on the bottom left of the "Summaries" tab will summarize the changes in frequency and proportion of author race/ethnicity before and after the citation audit. This table will indicate any increases or decreases for all racial/ethnic groups. Furthermore, if an author of a particular racial/ethnic group is not cited before or after the citation audit, the text in the "Race/Ethnicity" column of the "Change" table will turn the text red (see Note under "Change" table)
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Additional Resources
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Open-source code that probabilistically assigns race and gender info to a references list
Chrome extension that shows probabilistic estimation of author gender on Google Scholar and PubMed searches
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Suggested Citation
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Azpeitia, J., Lombard, E.J., Pope, T., & Cheryan, S. (2022) Reference audit: A technique for diversifying your references. Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
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