Academic Writing Citation Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

Any time you quote, paraphrase, summarize, or reference a source, you must cite that source in a parenthetical note or a footnote and append a bibliography, which, depending on the discipline, may be called works cited or references. All citations share some basic components, including the title of the work being referred to, the name of the work’s author s , the publisher, and the date of publication. Beyond these general requirements, styles of citation vary by discipline and by professor’s preference. In the humanities, the most commonly accepted citation style is that of the modern language association mla.

In the social sciences, the american psychological association apa style is widely used. Historians typically employ the footnote style described in the chicago manual of style cms. Each scientific discipline has its own protocols and formats, usually available in a style manual produced by the discipline’s scholarly organization. You’ll see that many academic disciplines encourage the use of in text parenthetical citations rather than footnotes. Once you join a department as a concentrator and begin your junior year work, the department should provide you with information about expected citation formats and practices in the discipline.

Often, individual professors will provide you with information about their preferred citation format. For the specifics of each style, you should consult an official style manual, because the rules for citation vary greatly for different kinds of sources. For example, books are cited differently from articles, which are cited differently from e mail correspondence. You’ll need to consult a style manual to determine the proper format for each source type.

example 1: literary studies mla

the mla requires a parenthetical citation in the body of the text that corresponds to an entry in the works cited at the end. A citation for a quotation from a book in the mla style is formatted this way: as frank lentricchia argues, the waste land should not be understood as a logical sequence of events but as an intellectual and emotional complex grasped in an instant of time 194.

The parenthetical citation 194 refers to a page number from a book by frank lentricchia. Publication information about the book would be found in the works cited, where it would be formatted this way: lentricchia, frank. The apa also requires parenthetical citations in the body of the text, though these citations typically include the author and the date.

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A citation for a summary of an article in the apa style is formatted this way: studies that examine links between cardiovascular and mental activity must understand that cardiovascular activity itself comprises a suite of variables van roon, mulder, althaus, and mulder, 2004. The parenthetical citation van roon, mulder, althaus, and mulder, 2004 refers to an article by the four listed co authors. Publication information about the article would be found in the references, where it would be formatted this way: van roon, a. Introducing a baroflex model for studying cardiovascular effects of mental workload. A citation for a quotation from an article in the chicago style is formatted this way: nineteenth century bohemians were more dependent on mainstream culture than might at first appear. As one scholar puts it, bohemia’s self designated types always existed in symbiotic relation to bourgeois culture rather than in opposition to it. 1 the footnote 1 would refer to a note at the bottom of the page containing full publication information and formatted this way: 1.

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Christine stansell, american moderns: bohemian new york and the creation of a new century new york: henry holt and co. Citation styles in math, science, and engineering tend to vary from journal to journal. Following a quotation or a reference to the text, the author might name the source, or might use a superscript number such as 13 or a parenthetical number such as 13 , to indicate the number of the article in the final list of references.

The journal nature genetics uses the following format for articles, and the references are listed numerically rather than alphabetically: 13. et al. efficient generation and mapping of recessive developmental mutations using enu mutagenesis. Because of the variety of citation styles for math, science, and engineering, you should consult your professor about his or her preferences and expectations. An electronic source is any source that exists primarily in electronic form and is accessed primarily through electronic means. Websites, online periodicals, online books, e mails and postings, and even cd roms are all forms of electronic sources. But be careful: not all materials found through electronic means are necessarily electronic sources. For example, if a pdf of an article you found through a database on the library’s website was originally published in a printed journal, then the article doesn’t qualify as an electronic source.

In short, there’s a difference between electronic sources and sources that are accessed electronically. When citing an online source, your citation should contain the following elements: the author or editor if available , the title of the text if different from the name of the website the name of the website, the name of the site’s sponsor or associated institution or organization, the date you accessed the site, the electronic address url. For example, a short work posted on a website would be formatted in mla style as follows: mccort, dennis. This citation includes not only the author’s name and the work’s title, but also other important information, including the date of the work’s publication on the site february 2007 and the date the website was accessed 21 april 2008. The published guides of the mla, apa, and chicago styles include detailed descriptions of how to cite most electronic sources. As explained earlier in this booklet, the emerging nature of this new technology means that conventions are forming quickly, and the variations among citation styles vary considerably. Be sure to look up the appropriate form of citation and to consult your professor about any points of confusion.

For complete coverage of mla, apa, and chicago citation styles, you should obtain the most recent edition of each style’s official manual: mla handbook for writers of research papers 7th edition, 2009 , the publication manual of the american psychological association 6th edition, 2009 , and the chicago manual of style 16th edition, 2010. For an online guide to these styles, visit the library website, at library.princeton.edu/help/citing.php. A good commercially published guide is a pocket style manual, by diana hacker and nancy sommers 2011 , which includes brief but substantial overviews of the mla, apa, and chicago styles. This guide introduces a few of the academic style manuals used for writing, documenting, and publishing academic papers.

The section called guides to citation lists works that provide general and subject specific help with different documentation formats. Some of the more well known of documentation formats are those used by the modern languages association mla and the american psychological association apa , and those presented in the chicago manual of style and a manual for writers of term papers, theses, and dissertations. All of the works included under guides to citation provide advice on writing and composition in addition to the information they provide on citation, but are most useful, and most commonly used, for help with footnotes, endnotes, bibliographies, and other documentation. The section called style manuals presents those titles in the library's collection that are concerned with writing styles common to particular disciplines. The style manuals listed here contain information about writing composition, format for scientific illustrations and tables, use of art and music as evidence, and more.

Some, but not all, provide information on style for bibliographies and footnotes. The section called citation generators provides links to several web based tools that help you draft citations for various kinds of materials in several different formats, usually chicago, mla, and apa styles. For any of the citation generators, it's a good idea to proof the citations they draft.