Citations vs Attributions
What’s the difference?
This presentation by Amy Hofer for Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 international license. It was adapted from Citations vs. Attributions by Quill West, Open Education Project Manager, Pierce Community College, CC-BY 4.0. Some materials used have more restrictive licenses. Please note those licenses when you use my presentation.
Citation and attribution are similar concepts...
Both citation and attribution give credit to others. Citations give credit when you use someone else’s ideas or words in your own work. Attributions give credit when you reuse or reproduce someone else’s work.
…but citation and attribution have different purposes.
Think of citations as fulfilling an academic purpose, and attributions as serving a legal purpose.
Because they serve different purposes, you cannot replace one with the other, even though they have similar rules and parts.
Citations have an academic purpose. They tell your reader where ideas that you quote, paraphrase, or summarize, came from. A citation says to the reader: “I base my thinking on this other person’s work, which you can find by following my citation.”
"Wikipedian Protester" by xkcd.com is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.5
Attributions have a legal purpose. Writing an attribution statement is a legal requirement of reusing openly licensed works. An attribution says to the reader: “I have permission to reuse this other person’s work, which you can find by following my attribution.”
[attribution needed]
"If you want a culture of..." by opensource.com is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 / A derivative from the original work
| Citations | Attributions |
Use with: | Quotes, summaries, paraphrases | Openly licensed content |
Purpose: | Academic | Legal |
If you don’t: | Plagiarism | Copyright license violation |
How to: | Follow MLA, APA, or other style guide | Include title, author, URL, and license (no official style guide) |
Where: | Style guide tells you where to put your citations | Put your attribution in the same place the work is used |
Applies to: | Copyright, openly licensed, or public domain content | Only openly licensed materials |
Is plagiarism illegal?
No, but it is definitely in violation of your school’s academic integrity policy and can have serious consequences.
Cite your sources in order to give credit where credit is due; to help your reader track down the source of your ideas; and to show that your ideas are based on solid research and evidence.
Isn’t it plagiarism to reuse and reproduce someone else’s work?
In general, yes. But, when people publish their work with an open license, they give permission for others to reuse their work with attribution.
Most academic assignments require you to create original work, so check with your instructor before you reuse openly licensed content to make sure it’s ok.
Citations summarized
Give credit for words and ideas.
Avoid plagiarism.
Use the citation style required by your instructor.
Lots of citation generators available to help you write good citations.
Attributions summarized
Give credit for works you reuse.
Avoid legal and ethical issues.
Include the title of the work, creator, URL, and license type.
Tool to write good attributions: http://www.openwa.org/open-attrib-builder/
In your own work, please use both attributions & citations.