Citing Sources
Cite/document your sources according to the conventions of your discipline.
Make sure to cite within your paper when you use the material, as well as
including a bibliography or works cited.
All borrowed information must be cited. This includes not only
direct quotations, but also paraphrases, summaries, charts, and
graphs.
The following are common citation formats used. If you are unsure of what
style to use, contact your professor.
- Modern
Language Association (MLA)
– used for scholarly writing and student research papers. Classes in Humanities
(literature, arts, etc.) usually use this style. More information on MLA
can be found here.
- American
Psychological Association (APA)
– used by courses in social sciences (psychology, education, etc.). More
information on APA can be found here.
- Chicago
Manual of Style – typically used by history courses, as well as in
newspapers, magazines, books, and non-scholarly publications.
- Council of
Biology Editors (CBE) Number
System – used by some science courses.
- American
Medical Association Manual of Style (AMA)
- used by professionals in biological sciences (health, medicine, etc.).
- Turabian
- developed for college students (general purpose use).
Information on how to evaluate the accuracy and relability of internet sources
can be found here.
Charts, Tables, and Figures
Don’t forget to reference your charts and tables. Here are some links on
how to develop useful charts, tables, and figures as well as some links
on how to reference charts, tables, and figures within a document.
- Developing
useful charts, tables, and figures
- Referencing
charts, figures, and tables in a document
Appendices
Some papers require an appendix. Appendices contain information that is
not essential to body of the research paper. Such non-essential information
may include:
- lists of terms
- definitions
- extra research material (surveys, questionnaires, etc.)
- overly large tables of data
- tables that summarize various data included the paper's body
These items are useful, but including them in the body of the research paper
may detract from main point. It is good to group extra material into sets,
which means you may have more than one appendix. Be sure to give each appendix
a number: Appendix 1, Appendix 2, etc.
