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CITING SOURCES
A Bibliography of Sources at SE Library

When you do research for a paper or project, you may find information in lots of different sources. You may find some information out of a magazine article, or a scholarly journal article, or a book. Where you got this information needs to be recorded at the end of your paper. There are rules for what and how this information is recorded. These rules are found in citation style guides. There are three main citation style guides.

What is recorded for your sources.

The information that you record about each source in your paper is called a citation. The basic citation information for books contains the following: 1. Author's name 2. Title of book 3. Publishing place 4. Publisher 5. Date of publication

Here is an example of a citation.

Citing Your Sources

There are a number of different styles or formats for citations. Which style you use depends upon the subject discipline you are working in. If you are uncertain about which style to use, ask your professor.

Each style includes the same basic parts of a citation, but may organize them slightly differently.

Some Commonly Used Writing Style Guides:

	The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) The APA style is often used by students in the social sciences.
	MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers The MLA (Modern Language Association) style, is often used by students in languages and English.
	A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations This commonly-used style by Kate Turabian is a student version of a longer guide, The Chicago Manual of Style.

The above information was taken from SEARCHPATH. Resources for Librarians and Educators, Credits Original Searchpath material © 2001-2002 by the Board of Trustees of Western Michigan University. Searchpath incorporates material from TILT, a tutorial developed by the Digital Information Literacy Office for the University of Texas System Digital Library, © 1998-2002. This material may be reproduced, distributed, or incorporated only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Searchpath Open Publication License.

If you don't cite your sources that you use in your research paper, then you have committed plagiarism. If you quote directly from a source, or if you just paraphrase or summarize a section of a book, journal article, then you must cite where you obtained that information.

SOURCES THAT EXPLAIN WHAT PLAGARISM IS AND HOW NOT TO PLAGARIZE

R 808.042 F82L6	The Little, Brown Handbook This is an excellent book in helping you to write better. It contains chapters on grammar, and style, tense, spelling rules, plus how to document sources.
R 808.042 C86r6	The Random House Handbook This is a guide to good writing, and it covers how to compose whole essays, how to construct a research essay, how to support a thesis, how to construct good paragraphs, sentences, and good usage of words, punctuation, and more.
R 428.2 L98s	The St. Martin's Handbook This is a good book to use in writing a term paper, and takes you through the process of choosing a topic, gathering sources, evaluating and analyzing a resource. The next section takes you through the grammar lessons, and word usage.
808.06	How to Write Term Papers and Reports This book takes you through the whole term paper process, from choosing your topic to how to do research, to how to write the term paper and cite your sources.
Internet	General Research Information http://www.se.edu/lib/generalresearch.htm This is a link on the Research Aids to Library Resources Page. It contains links to sites that contain hints to doing research, how to avoid plagiarism, how to cite sources that you used in your paper, and more.
Internet	General Research Information http://www.indiana.edu/~istd/ This site is produced by the Indiana University Bloomington School of Education, and it is a fine tutorial for understanding plagiarism. It gives an overview of when and how to give credit; recommendations; decision flowchart. It has links to Web sites describing real plagiarism cases, and Web sites, books, dictionary links.
Internet	Avoiding Plagiarism http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/ This site is part of Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (or OWL) and contains some good information about what is plagiarism and what is not.

SOURCES TO HELP IN CITING SOURCES

R 808.027 G35m	Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Sixth ed. New York: Modern Language Association, 2003. This book, used by mainly by English departments, contains information about how to do research, compiling a bibliography, evaluation of sources, taking notes, outlining your paper, plagiarism, the mechanics of writing, and how to document or cite your sources that you used in your paper. There are examples for many different types of resources.
R 808.02 t84M6	Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Sixth edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996. This style manual is used mainly by history departments. It is commonly known as the Turabian style, after the author, Kate L. Turabian, who was dissertation secretary at the University of Chicago from 1930 to 1958. She handled over eleven thousand theses and dissertations during her time there, and began to develop rules for punctuation and grammar for the students at the University of Chicago, which was eventually published and is used widely in undergraduate and graduate work in many collages and universities.This sixth edition gives guidance on spelling, punctuation, quotations, and examples of how to cite many different types of resources.
R 808.02 Am3p	Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association FIfth edition. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001. This is literally what the title says: a volume that details how to publish a paper for the American Psychological Association. But it is more than that. It gives information and guidance on grammar, spelling, the parts of the manuscript, capitalization, quotes and manuscript preparation. Section 4 is the section that deals with citing your sources, and this part in particular is what has come to be known as the APA style of citing your sources.
Internet	Citing Sources: Documentation Guidelines for Citing Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism Duke University Libraries. http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/ This is an excellent site that gives you examples for citing your sources in the Turabian, MLA and APA styles. It gives examples of an article from a journal magazine and newspaper, both paper and online, and in a database, a book with one or more authors, a web site.
Internet	Landmark's Citation Machine http://citationmachine.net/ This site takes the bother and tediousness of having to remember all those specific rules for citing your sources. You give the machine the information about your source, and it will create the citation for you in both the MLA and APA styles.
Internet	KnightCite http://webapps.calvin.edu/knightcite/index.php This is another citation machine by the Heckman Library at Calvin College in Grand Rapids Michigan. This site also takes the bother and tediousness of having to remember all those specific rules for citing your sources. You give the machine the information about your source, and it will create the citation for you in the MLA, APA and Chicago styles.
Internet	SearchPath: Module 6: Citing Sources http://www.se.edu/lib/searchpath/yoursearchpath/mod6/index.html This is a part of the SearchPath Information Literacy Tutorial. It gives information on citing your citing your sources, plagiarism, and copyright.

Last Updated: June 23, 2008