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.) APA and other
scientific formats generally 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.
To cite a Web page,
cite the author, date, and page (for the page number see "File" and
"print preview"). Do not just cite the URL. See
Bibliographic Entry number 10.
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.