You need to cite quotations, paraphrases, facts, and ideas.
When you paraphrase, as I am pretending to do now, you must cite your source (Adams, 1984, p. 141). Note in this citation, I provide the author's last name, date, and page number. (Note the punctuation. Also check the following pages for bibliographic reference form.) APA and other scientific formats do not require that you cite the page number, but
for the purposes of this course, you must cite page numbers.
Of course, when you quote directly you need to cite your source, and
you must use quotation marks to show where the quotation begins and ends. Even if you pull two or three words out of a source, you may need to use quotations. So,
"[w]e all know that life is too short to worry about grades. . ." (Barber & Grice, 1974, p. 68). However, using citations correctly ". . . can make a big difference in the grade you receive . . ." (pp. 69-70), and for this course, citing your sources will be important. Note the second citation here. I cite only the page number showing that the quotation is from the author cited in the previous quotation. Similarly, when you use the author's name in the text, you do not need to repeat the author's name in the citation. According to Duncan, "Footnotes are passé, but be sure to correctly use the in-text citation method" (1986, p. 261).
If you use a long quotation, more than four lines, you should indent the quotation on the left side.
Citing your sources helps your readers complete their own research. Further, correctly citing your sources gives credit where credit is due and can help you avoid legal problems. Finally, citing sources adds credibility to your document. (Laxton, 1986, p. 39)
Notice that in this long quotation, I did not use quotation marks. If this text were double spaced, as your documents normally will be, this quotation also would be double spaced. Of course, whenever you quote, you should carefully use the author's exact words, punctuation, and spelling even if the author has made a mistake. If the author made a mistake, you should put [sic] after the error (Duncan, 1986, p. 278).
Generally, in scientific or technical documents, you should avoid using quotations.
If your source has two authors, include both names in the citation (Barber & Grice, 1974, p. 5), but if the source has
more than two authors, cite only the first author's name followed by "et al." -- and others (Jenson, et al., 1978, p. 31). Do not change the order in which the authors’ names appear. If you use information from a magazine, newspaper, or Web site that has
no stated author, place the first two or three key words from the article title in your citation in place of an author's name. For example, you might cite an article or a
Web page called "Nonpoint Source Water Quality Standards" that has no stated author (see Bibliographic Entry number 9b). Cite it like this:
("Nonpoint Source," 1980, p. 3). If you are citing two different sources by the same author, and those sources have the same publication dates, place the sources in alphabetical order (by title) in the reference section at the end of your document and differentiate between the sources by labeling the first "a," and the second "b." (Zimmerman, 1990a, p. 331; Zimmerman, 1990b, p. 27; Zimmerman, 1990c, p. 56). Finally, if the source has a corporate author, cite the first key words in the corporation's name.
Remember: Be consistent. Use one format throughout your document.
Here is a brief list of words that work well to introduce information taken from secondary sources.
