Introduction to Citations and Bibliographic Writing Formats

Introduction to Citations

and Bibliographic Writing

Formats

One of the main functions of doing research is to study what others have published to help you critically think and form your own opinions.

When you quote people -- or even when you summarize or paraphrase information found in books, articles or Web pages -- you must acknowledge the original author.

Big 6 Step #4 Information Seeking Strategies

If you do not, it is Plagiarism.

Plagiarism is stealing other people’s ideas and words, their thoughts, designs, etc, and passing them off as your own.

Plagiarism

includes copying text or pictures from Web pages or other sources

and pasting it into your paper

without identifying the original

author.

How Can You Avoid Plagiarism?

•Take clear, accurate notes about where you found specific ideas. (note cards, note paper,etc) •Use quotation marks when directly stating another person's words.

•Interpret (Write, summarize, in your own words.)

•Always credit original authors /artists for their information and ideas.

• Write down the complete citation information for each item you use on a labeled separate page.

(Works Cited Page/Bibliography)

Citing Your Sources.

To cite simply means to list.

Sources are those documents you used to retrieve your information such as”

Books, magazines, newspapers, web articles, web sites, pictures, primary documents, interviewees, etc.

Citing Sources

Psst. Here’s where I got my information.

(Citing a source) means giving credit to the authors and sources you used to write your paper.

The page where you write down every source you used to make your report, paper or project is called a

Bibliography or Works Cited Page

andIt is generally the last page of your

report.

A completed Work Cited Page looks like this.

Your completed page should look like this:

•Title

•Alphabetical order

•Double space between citations

•2nd line of each citation indented.

Your completed page should look like this:

•Title

•Alphabetical order

•Double spaced

•2nd line of each citation indented.

Citing Sources

It can be difficult to figure out what needs to be cited (credited).

You should cite:books, articles, pictures, charts, Illustrations,tables,web sites,primary documents,

What Do I Cite?

music,graphs,quotations,statistics.

NO

You do NOT cite search engines. (ex. Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN, etc.)

There are many written formats of citing sources, however, the most common and frequently used are:

The MLA format (Modern Language Association)

The APA format (American Psychological Association)

The Chicago format (Univ. of Chicago)

The written format of all citations are very specific.

Words, order and punctuation are very, very important.

MLA format

For Books ( one author)

Author’s Last Name, Author’s First Name. Title of Book.

City of Publication: Name of Publisher, Date of Publication.

Example:

Fradin, Dennis. The Adventures of Polar Bears. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers, 2005.

Italics can be used in the place of the “underline” if typed.

Example:

White, Joseph. “Richard E. Byrd” World Book. Vol 5 . Chicago: World Book Publishing, 2008.

For print encyclopedias:

Author’s last name, Author’s first name. “Title of article”. Name of Encyclopedia. Vol #. City of Publication: Name of Publisher, Date.

MLA format

For computer sources:

Company/author’s last name, Company/Author’s first name.“Title of webpage”. Name of website. Institution or Organization. Date of Access or update.

<Web Address>

Example:

Montague, Richard. "Richard Evelyn Byrd". Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc.11/20/2009.<http://en.wikipedia.org>

MLA format

Artist, if available. “Description or title of image.” Date of image. Type of image Title of larger site, book, or magazine. Date of download. <URL>

Smith, Greg. “Rhesus Monkey”. No date. Online image. Monkey Picture Gallery. 3 May 2009. <http://monkeys.online.org/rhesus.jpg>

For Pictures

MLA format

A Guide just for you.

Pay close attention tolayout, format, andpunctuation

Note Quotation marks and underlines.

URL means web address.

Before you Forget

Take citationnotes

Before you Forget

Take citationnotes

Some common citation generators for the Duh, duhs.

Citation Wizard

Citefast.com

Knightcite Citation Service

Duuuuh! I don’t have a

clue.

Do not become too dependent on these generators.

Learn to do this yourself.

You will not have a generator to use on a test, like the SAT, ACT, and others.