Citation Information

DOCUMENTING SOURCES

There are two major systems for documenting your sources and you should check with your teacher as to which system you should use for a particular course.  The goal of each system is to help your audience find the resources you used.  Any researcher should be able to find the same information you did with the citations you provide.  Note that academic integrity demands that you provide this information, and that you are guilty of plagiarism if you do not provide accurate source information—whether the error is intentional or not.

OPTION 1: MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION (MLA) STYLE
PARENTHETICAL REFERENCES WITH WORKS CITED

The MLA system uses in-text signal phrases and parenthetical citations and a “Works Cited” page to indicate authors, titles, and referenced page numbers.  The Works Cited page should include all the sources you referenced in your text. As of 2009, MLA no longer requires URLs unless the citation information does not lead readers easily to referenced document. If your teacher would like a URL, MLA suggests the use of brackets at the end of the entry.

In-Text Signal Phrases and Parenthetical Examples:
Here are three different ways a researcher might use the proper MLA citations in a paper.

Cornell West, discussing the importance of youth in American culture, states in his book Democracy Matters that, “In past moments of national division, young people have played a disproportionate role in deepening the American democratic experiment” (174).

In Democracy Matters, we read that, “In past moments of national division, young people have played a disproportionate role in deepening the American democratic experiment” (West 174).

Cornell West asserts that young people have been vital to American democracy (174).

In the Works Cited page at the end of the researcher’s paper, Cornell West and his book should be fully cited (see below):

Works Cited Examples (which are organized in alphabetical order)

For books in print:
Last name, First name. Italicized Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year Published. Media type.

Banks, James, ed. Handbook of Multicultural Education.  San Francisco,                                                           California: Jossey-Bass, 2004.  Print.
Benioff, David. City of Thieves. New York: Plume, 2009. Print.
West, Cornell. Democracy Matters. New York: Penguin Press, 2004. Print.

For magazines in print:
Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Magazine Title. Day Month Year: pages. Media type.

Shermer, Michael. “Will E.T. Look Like Us?” Scientific American. November, 2009: 36. Print.

For Images (including paintings, sculptures and photographs):
Artist’s Last name, First name.  Title of work.  Date of Creation.  Institution and City where the work is physically located.  Name of Website.  Media type.  Date of Access.

Goya, Francisco.  The Family of Charles IV.  1800. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Museo Nacional del Prado. Web. 3 January 2010.

For articles from databases:
Last name, First name.  “Article Title.”  Publication Title. Version, issue, volumes numbers or post dates if available. Database Name. Publication date: Page Numbers if available. Media Type. Date you accessed material.

Belle, Jeff. “Revenge of the Librarians.” EContent 1 May 2002: ProQuest. Web. 12 November 2009.
Goodale, Gloria and Daniel B. Wood. “The Jay Leno Show and the Rise of Political Humor.”  The

Christian Science Monitor, 13 September 2009:  99. ProQuest. Web. May 3, 2010.

“The Samurai and the Sacred.” California Bookwatch. September, 2009. Gale Group. Web. 28 October, 2009.

For material from websites:
Author name if available. “Article name” if available.  Title of website, project, or book. Version, issue, volumes numbers or post dates if available. Publisher information. Publication date.  Page numbers if available. Media Type. Date you accessed material.

Beebee, Thomas O. “The Geopolitics of Amazônia in Souza’s Fiction.” CLCWeb: Comparative

Literature and Culture.  Issue 11.3 (September 2009). Web.  November 11, 2009.

Obama, Barack. “Transcript of President Barack Obama’s Remarks at CIA Headquarters.” Central

Intelligence Agency. 20 April 2009. Web. 12 November 2009.

The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue University,

2008. Web. 23 April 2010.

OPTION 2: CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE (CMOS)
FOOTNOTING WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY
This system uses footnotes and a bibliography for documentation.  The bibliography should include all sources you consulted as a part of your research, whether you quoted from them or not.  Complete citations are required for both the footnotes and the bibliography.

Footnote Examples:
#. First name Last name, Title of Work (Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication), page #.

1. Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: the Life of the Author of Silent Spring (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997), 134.
2. Brian Black, “The Ecology of Oil: Environment, Labor, and the Mexican Revolution, 1900-1938,” Environmental History, 13, no. 2 (2008), http://proquest.umi.com (accessed March 9, 2010).
3. Lear, 103.

Bibliography Examples:
Last name, First name. Title of Work, Place of Publication: Publisher, Publication Date. Page #.

“100 Best Wildlife Pictures,” National Geographic, November, 2002.
Kornbluh, Karen and Rachel Homer, “Paycheck Feminism.” Ms. Magazine, Fall 2009, 28-33.
Lear, Linda. Rachel Carson: the Life of the Author of Silent Spring. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997.
Peters, Jeremy W, “N.Y. Senate Delays Vote on Gay Marriage Bill.” New York Times, November 10,

2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/nyregion/11albany.html?_r=1&hp (accessed November 10, 2009).

Sanger, David E. and Eric Schmidtt. “War Plan for Iraq Calls for Big Force and Quick Strikes.”

New York Times, 10 November, 2002, 1+.