# Citing Swiss-AL

How to cite the platform, a corpus, or an analysis based on a subcorpus.

Every citation of corpus data should identify five things:

- **who produced the data** — ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics
- **which corpus and the year it was published** — the name exactly as it appears in the platform and the year it was published
- **where it was accessed** — the Swiss-AL Platform
- **when** — the date you accessed the corpus or ran the analysis
- **a permanent identifier**
 
## Citing the platform

To cite Swiss-AL as a whole — the platform, its design, its purpose — cite the
descriptive publication rather than the website:

> Krasselt, J., Dreesen, P., Stücheli-Herlach, P., Lemmenmeier-Batinić, D.,
> Geckeler, S., Rothenhäusler, K., & Fluor, M. (2026). Swiss-AL: Plattform für
> Sprachdaten in den Angewandten Wissenschaften. *Zeitschrift für germanistische
> Linguistik*, 54(1), 210–229. https://doi.org/10.1515/zgl-2026-2008

Further publications are listed in the [Bibliography](bibliography.md).

## Citing a corpus

> ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics. (Year of corpus creation). *Corpus name* \[Corpus\].
> Swiss-AL Platform. Retrieved DD Month YYYY, from https://swiss-al.zhaw.ch

For example:

> ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics. (2025). *DE Organizational Corpus
> (2010–2024)* \[Corpus\]. Swiss-AL Platform. Retrieved 6 September 2026, from
> https://swiss-al.zhaw.ch

In running text: (ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics, 2025).

## Citing a subcorpus

A subcorpus cannot be cited as a retrievable resource, because it exists only in
your own project. Cite the {term}`parent corpus` instead, and describe the
selection precisely enough that someone could rebuild it:

> Analyses are based on a subcorpus of the *DE Journalistic Corpus (high
> reach+regional, 2018–2025)* (ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics, 2025),
> created on 6 September 2026. The subcorpus comprises all documents
> from daily and online newspapers published between January 2020 and December
> 2022 containing the keyword *Corona* (n = 4,312 documents; 2.1 million tokens).

The parent corpus is what makes the work traceable; the description is what makes
it reproducible.

## What to record while you work

Note these down when you build a subcorpus, not afterwards — the platform does not
keep a log of how a subcorpus was defined.

| Record | Where to find it |
| --- | --- |
| Corpus name, exactly as displayed | corpus selection menu |
| Date the subcorpus was created | your own notes |
| Filter criteria: categories, sources, time span, keywords | the values you entered in the wizard |
| Number of documents and tokens | [Overview](explore-corpus.md#overview) |
| Tool settings used | the tool's own controls, e.g. context window size or number of topics |

The last row matters more than it looks. A
[Common Pairings](search-corpus.md#common-pairings) result depends on the window
size, and a [Topics](explore-corpus.md#topics) result on the number of topics in
the model. Without those settings, a reader cannot reproduce your figures even
with the right corpus.

## DOIs and SWISSUbase

Swiss-AL is registered with SWISSUbase, the Swiss repository for research data.

:::{note}
We are currently in the process of adding the individual corpora to SWISSUbase so
that each receives its own DOI. This work is ongoing, and not every corpus has a
DOI yet.

Once a corpus has one, include it in your citation. The DOI will be listed in [Corpora](corpora.md#all-corpora-at-a-glance).

> ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics. (2025). *DE Journalistic Corpus \[high reach+regional, 2018-2025\]* 
> \[Corpus\]. Swiss-AL Platform. Retrieved 6 September 2026, from
> https://swiss-al.zhaw.ch. [https://doi.org/10.48656/v776-mk85](https://doi.org/10.48656/v776-mk85)
:::