Citing Your Sources
Why You Should Cite Your Sources
1. Citations reflect the careful and thorough work you have put into locating and exploring your sources.
2. Citations are a courtesy to the reader, who may share your interest in a particular area of scholarship. They help readers understand the context of your argument, and locate your work within other conversations on your topic.
3. Citations allow you to acknowledge those authors who made possible particular aspects of your work. Failure to provide adequate citations constitutes plagiarism!
4. Citations, by delineating your intellectual debts, also draw attention to the originality and legitimacy of your own ideas.
From: Sources: Their Use and Acknowledgement. Copyright © 1998 Trustees of Dartmouth College. (www.dartmouth.edu/~sources)
The Elements of a Citation
Here is the information you typically need in order to cite the following types of sources. We also have some tips to help you decipher citations so that you can figure out the type of information source being cited. This can help you locate useful sources that you might find in bibliographies or lists of references in your reading.
Book
Levitt Steven D. and Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything. New York : William Morrow, 2005.
| Title | Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything |
| Author(s) | Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner |
| Place of publication | New York |
| Publisher | William Morrow |
| Copyright/Publication date | 2005 |
Clues that this is a book:
- Contains only one title: Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
- Includes a place of publication: New York
- Includes the name of a publishing company: William Morrow
- Might or might not include page numbers.
To find a specific book, you can search the Library Catalog by author or title.
Journal Article (print)
Liu, Jinghua, Miriam F. Cahn, Neil J. Dorans. "An Application of Score Equity Assessment: Invariance of Linkage of New SAT to Old SAT Across Gender Groups." Journal of Educational Measurement 43. 2 (2006): 113-29.
| Article Title | An Application of Score Equity Assessment: Invariance of Linkage of New SAT to Old SAT Across Gender Groups |
| Author(s) | Jinghua Liu, Miriam F. Cahn, and Neil J. Dorans. |
| Journal Title (title of the journal or magazine in which the article appears | Journal of Educational Measurement |
| Journal volume and issue | Volume 43 Issue 2 |
| Date of the Article | 2006 |
| Page numbers for the article | 113-129 |
Clues that this is a print article:
- Contains the title of the article, sometimes in quotation marks: "An Application of Score Equity Assessment: Invariance of Linkage of New SAT to Old SAT Across Gender Groups."
- Contains another title, the title of the journal, newspaper, or magazine in which the article appears, often underlined or in italics: Journal of Educational Measurement
- Contains a volume and, sometimes, an issue number: 43. 2, or sometimes 43(2)
- The date is usually only a year
If you have a citation to a specific article that you are interested in finding, you can search the Library Catalog or the Electronic Journals List for the title of the journal.
Newspaper article
Bick, Julie. "The Long (and Sometimes Expensive) Road to the SAT." New York Times 28 May 2006, Section 3 p6.
| Article Title | The Long (and Sometimes Expensive) Road to the SAT |
| Author(s) | Julie Bick |
| Newspaper title | New York Times |
| Date | May 28, 2006 |
| Page | 6 |
| Edition or Section | 3 |
Clues that this is a newspaper article:
- Like journal articles, it contains the title of the article (often in quotation marks) and the title of the publication
- Unlike journal articles, the date includes the month and day in addition to the year
- Some include section numbers: Section 3
- Some include section numbers as part of the page numbers (e.g. A6, B4)
If you have a citation to a specific newspaper article that you are interested in finding, you can search the Library Catalog or the Electronic Journals List for the title of the journal.
Article (online)
Popham, W. James. "Branded By a Test." Educational Leadership 63.7 (2006): 86-87. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Utah State University Library. 3 Aug. 2006 <http://search.epnet.com>.
| Article Title | Branded By a Test |
| Author(s) | James W. Popham |
| Journal Title (title of the journal or magazine in which the article appears) | Educational Leadership |
| Journal volume and issue | Volume 63 Issue 7 |
| Page numbers for the article | 86-87 |
| Database where you found the full-text of the article | Academic Search Premier |
| Database platform | EBSCO Host |
| Database provider (library or other group which provided access to the database) | Utah State University Library |
| Web address of the database | http://search.epnet.com |
Clues that this is an online article:
- Includes the elements of an article citation, such as two titles, volume/issue numbers, and page numbers
- Includes the name of the article database in which the article was found: Academic Search Premier
- Contains a URL to the article database in which the article was found: http://search.epnet.com
- Includes a date of access
Like print articles, you can search the Library Catalog or the Electronic Journals List for the title of the journal, newspaper, or magazine to see if we have access to the publication here at the library.
Web Page
(all of the elements might not be available for each web page)
Vouchers. 2006. National Education Association. 3 Aug. 2006. <http://www.nea.org/vouchers/index.html>.
| Author | no author listed |
| Title of web page | Vouchers |
| Web address | http://www.nea.org/vouchers/index.htm |
| Web site host or publisher | National Education Association |
| Date of copyright or date page was updated | 2006 |
| Date you accessed the page | August 3, 2006 |
Clues that this is a web page:
- Often does not have individual authors
- Includes a URL to the site.
- Does not include the name of a library or library database
- Includes a date of access.
How to Cite Your Sources: Style Manuals
A style manual or handbook will tell you how to format your citations and bibliographies. The following are the most common style manuals. They can be found at the information desk on the first floor of the library.
MLA Style Manual
Call Number: PN 147 .G444 1998Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA Style)
Call Number: BF 76.7 .P83 2001The Chicago Manual of Style
Call Number: Z 253 .U69 1993
The following web sites provide examples of how to cite commonly-used resources, such as books, articles, and web pages.
MLA Style - from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
APA Style - from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
Chicago Style - from Ohio State University Libraries
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