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Citing Sources

MLA Format Examples (See also: MLA format on the Research & Documentation Online website)

APA Format Examples (See also: APA format on the Research & Documentation Online website)

Chicago Style Format Examples (on the Research & Documentation Online website)

Documentation Guides for MLA, APA, Chicago & CSE formats (from the Research & Documentation Online website)

Automated Bibliography Formatting

How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography

How to Cite a Work within the Text of Your Paper (Parenthetical Citations)

 

Why Cite Sources?

Once you have located and read an adequate number of sources, incorporated ideas from your reading with your own understanding of the topic, and presented your analysis of your topic in a research paper, it is essential to cite the sources and you must use the proper bibliographic format to do so.

The main reason for citing your sources is to give credit to those authors whose ideas you used in your research. Even when you do not quote directly from another work, if reading that source contributed to the ideas presented in your paper, you must give the authors proper credit by including their work in your bibliography. Citing your sources allows readers of your work to easily find the sources to which you've referred.

If you do not cite the sources upon which your research is based, you will be guilty of plagiarism. Plagiarism is using the ideas and writings of others and representing them as your own. Even if you do not copy another source word-for-word, but rather rephrase the source without attributing it to the original author by including a footnote, you are guilty of plagiarism. Plagiarism is a serious violation of academic standards and is punishable with a failing grade, possible expulsion from the institution, and may subject you to ostracism by your peers. The increasing availability of electronic information has unfortunately made it easy to copy another author's works.

 

How to Cite a Work within the Text of Your Paper (Parenthetical Citations)

 

Remember that you need to give credit to authors whose words or ideas you are using in your paper. The citations you will provide within the text of your paper will help your reader a) to know who said the words you quoted or paraphrased, and b) to locate the full information about that source on your Works Cited page in case the reader wishes to consult the sources you've used.

 

You have two options when you cite your sources within the text of your paper:

  • Provide the author's name and the page number on which you found the material you are citing:
    • El Niño has actually benefitted the northern regions of the United States while at the same time it has brutalized the southern regions (Sampson 92-94).
    • Forecasters from across the country agree that El Niño has "made for an unusual year" (Sampson 91).
  • Provide the author's name in the text of your sentence and include only the page number after the sentence.
    • John Sampson says that El Niño has actually benefitted the northern regions of the United States while at the same time it has brutalized the southern regions (92-94).
    • Forecasters from across the country agree with John Sampson's statement that El Niño has "made for an unusual year" (91).

Note: There is no punctuation after the author's name or before the page number. Do not use commas, p., pgs., or any other such notation in the citation.

When no author is given for a source, include the title of the article, web page or book instead of the author. An article or web page title should be in quotes; a book title should be underlined or italicized. If the title is long, you can shorten it in the parenthetical documentation.

When you are citing online sources (from a webpage or an online database such as PowerSearch or Proquest), you run into a special problem: electronic sources don't have page numbers. In these cases, you will need to cite the author's name as usual, but don't include page numbers, e.g.

  • According to C.A. Mitchie, "Folate deficiency in women of childbearing age increases their risk of having a pregnancy affected by a neural-tube defect."
  • Research shows that "supplementing a woman's diet early in pregnancy with folic acid can prevent up to 70% of neural tube defects" (Moore).

Note: If you happen to be using a source which numbers its paragraphs or has section divisions, headings or numbers, you can use this information in place of page numbers. For example:

    • Research shows that "supplementing a woman's diet early in pregnancy with folic acid can prevent up to 70% of neural tube defects" (Moore, par. 20).
    • "Negroponte's uncomplicated, personal tone fools the reader into a sense that his theses are simplistic" (Herrington "Introduction")

      Do not use the page numbers from your paper printout.

When a writer's or a speaker's quoted words appear in a source written by someone else, begin the parenthetical citation with the abbreviation "qtd. in."

    • According to Richard Retting, "As the comforts of home and the efficiency of the office creep into the automobile, it is becoming increasingly attractive as a work space" (qtd. in Johnson 23)

 


Bibliography or "Works Cited" List

The most common way to cite sources is to use a bibliography or "Works Cited" list at the end of your research paper. The Works Cited list includes a citation for each of the sources you used to write your paper. The citations are formatted in a consistent style according to one of several standard citation formats. Two of the most common formats used for undergraduate research papers are the MLA (Modern Language Association) format and the APA (American Psychological Association) format. Some instructors specify which format they prefer; others leave it up to the students as long as they maintain one consistent format.

The list of all citations is commonly organized in a single alphabetical list. Each different type of source--book, magazine article, journal article, newspaper article, article from a reference book, World Wide Web page--has a precise format that is specified by the given format (MLA, APA or other).

See: Works Cited List example

Citing Database Information for Full Text Sources Accessed from Online Databases

With the increasing availability of full-text articles from online periodical databases (online, CD-ROM and other electronic formats), students have questions about how to cite documents that have been accessed electronically. If the full text of an article or other document is accessed from an electronic database (even if the document was originally published in a traditional print publication), the name of the database, the database service or publisher and the date the information was accessed must be included in addition to the information for the originally published document. But, if an electronic database was used just to find a reference (a citation and/or abstract) to a document, and the full text of the document was accessed from the original print publication, the database information should not be included in the bibliographic citation. (See examples below in the "Citation Format for Articles from Periodicals" for either MLA or APA format.)

Below are examples of how to cite most of the common types of sources according to the:


Automated Bibliography Formatting

If your sources are relatively standard types, you can try using an automated bibliography formatting website, in which you enter the information for each of your sources and the website formats citations for you. If you want try using one of these sites, we recommend: Noodle Bib Express

If you use an automated site, you should double check your results to be sure that the formatting was done correctly.
Other automated bibliography formatting websites include: Citation Machine and EasyBib.com.

 

MLA CITATION FORMAT

For more detailed explanations of how to use the MLA format, you should consult one of the following:

  • The official MLA style manuals: MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (REF/LB2369.G53 2003) & MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (REF PN 147 G444 1998) (Ask a librarian to show you these guide books.)
  • The official MLA webpage: Frequently Asked Questions about MLA Style
  • Darling, Charles. "Guide to Writing Research Papers Based on Modern Language Association (MLA) Documentation." Arthur C. Banks Jr. Library. 12 June 2002. Capital Community College. 1 Dec. 2003. <http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/index.shtml>.
  • Hacker, Diane. Research and Documentation Online. 2002. Bedford / St. Martin's. 1 Dec. 2003. <http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/>.
  • Harnack Andrew and Eugene Kleppinger. "Citation Styles." Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources. 2003. Bedford / St. Martin's. 1 Dec. 2003. <http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html>.

General Information

  • In a bibliography or "Works Cited" list, all citations are listed in alphabetical order, according to the last name of the author. If no author is listed, alphabetize by the first word in the title (ignoring "A", "An" or "The" at the beginning of a title).
  • In all cases, the citation begins with the author's name (last name first) whenever the author's name is listed. If the author's name is not given, then the citation begins with the title of the work (book, article or other document). If there are two or three authors, the second and third authors' names are listed first name first as shown in the book example below.
  • Book, magazine, journal and newspaper titles are always underlined.
  • Article titles are always put in "quotations".
  • Subtitles are designated by a colon (:).
  • All words in any titles (of books, articles or other documents) are capitalized, except the following parts of speech (when they are not the first word in a title or subtitle):
    • Articles (a, an, the)
    • Prepositions (e.g., in, of , to, against, between)
    • Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet)
    • the to in infinitives (as in How to Play Chess)

Citation Format for Books

Books with a single author:

Citation description:
Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). Title. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Citation example:

Gamson, Joshua. R. Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press,1994.

Books with two, three or more authors: 

Citation description:
First author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any), and Second author's First name Middle initial (if any) Last name. Title. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.
Note: For a book with three authors, list all three author's names. Only the first author's name should be listed last name first. For a book with more than 3 authors, list only the first author's name followed by a comma and the words et al.

Citation examples:

Stewart, David W., and David H. Furse. Effective Television Advertising: A Study of 1000 Commercials. Lexington: Lexington Books, 1986.

Jonson, Albert, Thomas Gray, and Jessie Muncy. Information Access. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Baker, Nellie, et al. Book Publishing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.


Books with editor(s) rather than author(s):

Citation description:
Editor's last name, First name Middle initial (if any), ed. Title. Place of publication: Year of publication.

Citation example:

Baughman, Cynthia, ed. Women on Ice: Feminist Essays on the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Spectacle. New York: Routledge, 1995.


Essay, article, story or chapter in a book with an editor (if the book is an anthology of works by multiple writers):

Citation description:
Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). "Title of Chapter or Essay." Title of Book. Ed. Editor's first and last name. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication. Page numbers for the chapter.

Citation example:

Fox, Aaron A. "Split Subjectivity in Country Music and Honky-Tonk Discourse." All That Glitters: Country Music in America. Ed. George H. Lewis. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1993. 131-139.
 

Citation Format for Articles from Periodicals (Magazines, Journals & Newspapers)

Magazine article (the following information is for paper copies of articles, see below for additional information required for articles from databases):

Citation description:
Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). "Title of Article." Title of Magazine Day (if given) Month (abbreviated except May, June, and July) Year: Page numbers of article (if the article is not printed on consecutive pages, give the first page followed by a +).

Citation examples:

Bazell, Robert. "Science and Society: Growth Industry." New Republic 15 Mar. 1993: 13-14.

Frank, Michael. "The Wild, Wild West." Architectural Digest June 1993: 180+.

Journal article (the following information is for paper copies of articles, see below for additional information required for articles from databases):

Citation description:
Author's Last name, First name Middle initial (if any). "Title of article." Journal title Volume number. Issue number (if each issue number begins on page 1) (Date of publication): page numbers.

Citation example:

Babrow, Austin S. "Student Motives for Watching Soap Operas." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 31.3 (Summer 1997): 309-321.

Newspaper article (the following information is for paper copies of articles, see below for additional information required for articles from databases):

Citation description:
Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). "Article Title." Title of Newspaper Day Month (abbreviated except May, June, and July) Year: Section and page number(s) (if the article is not printed on consecutive pages, just give the first page followed by +).

Citation example:

MacKenzie, Bill. "Packin' the Heat." San Francisco Chronicle 4 Nov. 1993: A16+.

Book review article (the following information is for paper copies of articles, see below for additional information required for articles from databases):

Citation description:
Reviewer's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). "Article Title." (if more than "Book Review" and/or title of the book) Rev. of Title of Book, by Book author's first name Middle initial (if any) Last name. Title of the Periodical Volume and/or date and page information for the appropriate type of periodical as shown above. If the full text of the article is accessed from an electronic database, include database information and access date as shown below.

Citation examples:

Hendrickson, Donald. Rev. of The Case Against Immigration: The Moral, Economic Social and Environmental Reasons for Reducing United States Immigration Back to Traditional Levels, by Roy Howard Beck. Foreign Affairs 75.4 (July-August 1996): 146.

Fukuyama, Francis. "No Vacancy." Rev. of The Case Against Immigration: The Moral, Economic Social and Environmental Reasons for Reducing United States Immigration Back to Traditional Levels, by Roy Howard Beck. New York Times Book Review 1 Sept. 1996:18.


Article accessed from an online library subscription periodical database (such as Gale, or Proquest web-based databases):

Citation description:
Article information as shown above for magazine, journal or newspaper; then add: Title of Database. Name of database service or publisher. Name of the library through which the database was accessed. Date of researcher's access. <URL (electronic address)> (because the length of the URL may sometimes be excessively long, the cited URL may be either the complete address for the web page of the full-text article or the basic address for accessing the database).

Citation examples:

a. Popular magazine article from PowerSearch databases (click here to see actual article from the database):

Adler, Jonathan H. "A Child's Garden of Misinformation."  Consumers' Research Magazine Sept. 1993: 11+. General OneFile. Gale. Skyline College Library. 8 May 2008. <http://find.galegroup.com>.

b1. Academic journal article from Proquest Psychology database (click here to see actual article from the database):

Dodge, Brian, et. al.. "Sexual Compulsivity Among Heterosexual College Students." The Journal of Sex Research 41.4 (Nov 2004): 343+. ProQuest Psychology Journals. Proquest. Skyline College Library. 21 Nov. 2006.. <http://proquest.umi.com/>.

b2. Academic journal article from History Resource Center database (click here to see actual article from the database):

Hoganson, Kristin. " ‘As Badly Off As The Filipinos’: U.S. Women's Suffragists and the Imperial Issue at the Turn of the Twentieth Century." Journal of Women's History13.2 (Summer 2001): 9+. History Resource Center: U.S.. Gale. Skyline College Library. 21 Nov. 2006. <http://galenet.galegroup.com>.

c. Article from a book from the Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center database (click here to see actual article from the database):

Lunneborg, Patricia. "An Unwanted Pregnancy Justifies an Abortion." Opposing Viewpoints: Abortion . Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center . Gale. Skyline College Library. 21 Nov. 2008 <http://find.galegroup.com>.

d. Book review article from an academic journal from PowerSearch databases:

Carlsen, Andrea B. and Joseph V. Penn.  Rev. of  Kids Who Commit Adult Crimes: Serious Criminality by Juvenile Offenders, by R. Barri Flowers.  Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 26.5 (Oct 2005): 390+. Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale.  Skyline College Library.  21 Nov. 2006.  <http://find.galegroup.com>.

Article for which only the abstract (summary) of the article is accessed from an online periodical database on the World Wide Web (such as InfoTrac databases or the Medline database on PubMed):

Citation description:
Article information as shown above for magazine, journal or newspaper. Abstract. Title of Database. Name of database service or publisher. Date of researcher's access. <URL (electronic address)> (because the length of the URL may sometimes be excessively long, the cited URL may be either the complete address for the web page of the full-text article or the basic address for accessing the database).

Citation example:

LeGrand, E. K. "Potential Risk of Enhancing Survival of Infected Cells." Journal of the American Veterinary Medicine Association 213.12 (15 Dec. 1998): 1698. Abstract. Medline. PubMed. 18 Feb. 2006. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=9861953&form=6&db=m&Dopt=b>.

 

Citation Format for Articles from Encyclopedias or Other Reference Sources, including Online Reference Sources

Article from a Major Print Encyclopedia

Citation description:
Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). [If no author listed, begin with article title.] "Title of Article: Subtitle of Article (if any)." Title of Encyclopedia or Other Reference Source. Year of Publication ed.

Citation example:

Naisbitt, John, Thea K. Flaum and Oscar Handlin. "United States: Immigration." Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia. 1998 ed.

Article from a Non-Major Print Encyclopedia or Other Reference Source

Citation description:
Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). [If no author listed, begin with article title.] "Title of Article: Subtitle of Article (if any)." Title of Encyclopedia or Other Reference Source. Ed. Encyclopedia Editor's name (if any). Edition (if not first edition). Number of volumes. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Citation example:

Helweg, Arthur W. "Immigration." Encyclopedia of Social Issues. Ed. John K. Roth. 6 vols. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1997.

Article from an Online Encyclopedia or Other Online Reference Database

Citation description:
Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). [If no author listed, begin with article title.] "Title of Article: Subtitle of Article (if any)." Title of Encyclopedia or Other Reference Source. Date of Publication or Latest Update. Publisher, Sponsoring Organization or Website name. Day Month Year of researcher's visit. <URL (web address) of the page>.

Citation example:

Berthoff, Roland. "United States of America: The People: Colonial and National Immigration." Encyclopedia Americana. 2004. Grolier Online. 29 Mar. 2007. <http://www.go.grolier.com/gol>.

"Charles Dickens." Authors and Artists for Young Adults. Vol. 23. Gale Research, 1998. Biography Resource Center. 2004. Thomson Gale Company. 26 Mar. 2007. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC>.

 

Citation Format for World Wide Web Pages

World Wide Web pages

Note: The MLA format for online publications is not completely standardized. Various websites provide specific information on how to cite information from the Web according to their current interpretations of official citation formats. For MLA format information, start with the official MLA website:

  • Other web sites that provide additional information on formatting electronic documents include:

General web page format:

Citation description:
Author's last name (if an author is given), First name Middle initial (if any). "Title of the Page." (if no title is given, provide a description, such as Personal Home Page.) Publication information for any print version of the source. Title of the Site. Editor of the site (if given). Day Month Year of publication or latest update. Name of any institution or organization sponsoring or associated with the website (if given and if different from the title of the site). Day Month Year of researcher's visit. <URL (web address) of the page>.
Note: If any of the above information is not given, leave the information out. If citing a website homepage, no title of page is included.

Citation example:

Brenner, Eric. "Citing Sources." Skyline College Library. 28 May 2008. Skyline College. 28 May. 2008. <http://www.skylinecollege.edu/library/citing.html>

Citation examples for specific types of Web sources (specific examples following the general description and example shown above):

Personal web page:

Bell, Rosemary. Home page. Fall 2003. 1 Oct. 2007. <http://www.smccd.net/accounts/bellro/>.

Academic or scholarly site:

The William Faulkner Society. 5 Oct. 2003. William Faulkner Soc. 1 Dec. 2007. <http://www.english.ufl.edu/faulkner/>.

NAIC Online. 29 Sept. 2003. National Association of Inventors Corporation. 1 Oct. 2007. <http://www.better-investing.org/>.

U. S. Department of Education. 29 Sept. 2003. US Dept. of Education. 1 Oct. 2007. <http://www.ed.gov/index.html>.

"William Faulkner." William Faulkner on the Web. 6 Feb. 2003. University of Mississippi. 20 Sept. 2007. <http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/ faulkner.html>.

Online book:

An online book may be the electronic text of part or all of a printed book, or a book-length document available only on the Internet (e.g., a work of hyperfiction).

Bird, Isabella L. A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1881. Victorian Women Writers Project. Ed. Perry Willett. 20 Apr. 1998. Indiana Univerity. 4 Oct. 2007. <http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/bird/rocky.html>.

Online book chapter:

Bryant, Peter J. "The Age of Mammals." Biodiversity and Conservation. 2002. University of California, Irvine. 4 Oct. 2007. <http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec02/b65lec02.htm>.

Article in an online journal:

Wysocki, Anne Frances. "Monitoring Order: Visual Desire, the Organization of Web Pages, and Teach the Rules of Design." Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments 3.2 (Fall 1998). English Dept., Texas Tech University. 21 Oct. 2007. <http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/3.2/features/wysocki/mOrder0.html>.

Article in an online magazine:

Fording, Laura. "Globalization and its Discontents." Newsweek 1 Dec. 2003. MSNBC News. 1 Dec. 2007. <http://www.msnbc.com/news/999004.asp?0cv=KB20&cp1=1>.

Newspaper article from a newspaper website:

Lattin, Don. "Religions Have Complicated Role in Globalization." San Francisco Chronicle 23 February 2003. SF Gate. 13 Nov. 2007. <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/02/23/LV133895.DTL>.

Bilmes, Linda J. and Joseph E. Stiglitz.  "The Iraq War will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More."  Washington Post. 9 March 2008. washingtonpost.com. 27 May 2008. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846.html>.

Poem or short story from a website:

Nesbit, Edith. "Marching Song." Ballads and Lyrics of Socialism. London, 1908. Victorian Women Writers Project. Ed. Perry Willett. May 2000. Indiana University. 26 June 2007. <http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/nesbit/ballsoc.html#p9>.

 

Citation Format for Audio/Video/Media

Video or Movie (theatrical performance)

Citation description:
Title. Dir. Director’s First Name Last Name. Optionally you can add narr. (narrated by), perf. (performers), prod. (produced by), writ. (writte