Citation

what / why / how

vocabulary

to cite (verb):

• to refer to
• to quote by way of example, authority, or proof
• to name in a citation

(source: Merriam-Webster)

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citation (noun):

• The action or an act of quoting or referring to a passage, text, author, legal precedent, etc., esp. as an authority or in support of an argument
• A cited passage, a quotation
• A reference providing information about where a particular quotation, text, etc., is to be found

(source: Oxford English Dictionary)

to quote (verb):

• to speak or write (a passage) from another usually with credit acknowledgment
• to cite in illustration

(source: Merriam-Webster)

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quotation (noun):

• A passage quoted from a book, speech, or other source

(source: Oxford English Dictionary)

Why cite?

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Why cite?

To show where our information comes from.

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A good system of citation provides readers with a map of information.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

When citing, think about what your reader wants and needs.

Readers wants to be able to verify information & find out more about what interests them.

A reader needs to be able to find the sources of your information quickly and easily.

Classic citation styles

Modern Language Association (MLA)

In-text citation:

• Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263).
• Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).
• Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).

Works cited page:

• Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. Oxford UP, 1967.

Classic citation styles

American Psychological Association (APA)

In-text citation:

• In Cummings et al.’s (2002) summary article reviewing three empirical studies on online social relationships, it was found that CMC, especially email, was less effective than FtF contact in creating and maintaining close social relationships.
• Two of the three reviewed studies focusing on communication in non-Internet and Internet relationships mediated by FtF, phone, or email modalities found that the frequency of each modality’s use was significantly linked to the strength of the particular relationship (Cummings et al., 2002).

References page:

• Cummings, J. N., Butler, B., & Kraut, R. (2002). The quality of online social relationships. Communications of the ACM, 45(7), 103-108.

Classic citation styles

Chicago Manual of Style

In-text citation:

• In Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Toulmin (1990) challenges us to consider how such different systems, different ways of viewing the world, come to hold sway at different points in time.
• “Cosmopolis,” according to Toulmin, invokes notions of nature and society in relationship to one another; more specifically, a cosmopolis is not a thing in and of itself (it is not nature, it is not society, it is not a story, and it is not a game) but a process, an ordering of nature and society (67-68).

References page:

• Toulmin, Stephen. 1990. Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Classic citation styles

For more on various citation styles, see the

Purdue Online Writing Lab

But classic citation styles were created for paper, not online. They’ve adjusted for online, but they still prioritize paper.

What would an online citation style look like?

What sort of information does the reader need?

What honors the original sources?

Your Research Article

Whatever system of citation you use for your research article should:

• Make it easy for readers to know where you got your information and how they can get more — in other words, to find your sources.
• Be as unobtrusive as possible. Readers don’t need all the reference info when they’re reading.
• Be honest, open, and clear.
• Allow for link rot: What happens if your link goes dead? Can the reader still figure out where your info came from?

• Use your judgment.
• Think like a reader.
• Be creative.
• Err on the side of too much info rather than too little.