A Rough Guide to Citing Sources within your own work
This is intended as a brief guide on how to cite your sources in text (also known as a ‘parenthetical citations’). If you would like to know more or are not quite sure of something please just ask Donna in the Library, who is always happy to help.
Keep in mind that the whole point of doing this is that the person reading your text can quickly look at your Works Cited list (aka bibliography) and see where you got the information from.
However, citing your sources not only shows where you got the information (whether it is an opinion or a statistic), it also strengthens any point you are making by adding a voice of authority.
To cite sources in text you just need...
the author's last name plus the page number if it is a book/periodical,
for example, here's a quote from my favourite book, "they rolled their terrible eyes" (Sendak 6).
* If you have paraphrased
Use the same citation format at the end of the sentence for example, the monsters’ horrible eyes rolled (Sendak 6).
* If you mention the author’s name in your text
Just add the page number at the end. for example, Sendak described how the monsters “rolled their terrible eyes” (6).
In my works cited list I would have Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. New York: Harper Collins, 1963. Print.
Now the person reading my text would know that there was an account of the monsters’ awful eyes on page 6. This is how I can back up my argument about how scary the monsters were.
Some typical variations... * You don't know the author's name
We use the title of the book/website instead. This is not unusual for websites – but do reflect on whether the source is reliable before using it! If the title is long, you can shorten it, as long as the first word is the same and the reader can easily see which source you are talking about in your list. If the title is in italics in your list, put the citation in italics too. If it is in quotation marks then use quotation marks. Remember - it should match your resource list. So if this was a website with no author name, my text would look like this "they rolled their terrible eyes" (Where the Wild Things Are). and in my works cited list I would have: Where the Wild Things Are. Harper Collins, 1963. Web. 18 Nov. 2008. <http://www.wherethewildthingsare.com>. NB: obviously if I had lots of sources with the title starting the same I'd have to put more words to differentiate the one I was quoting. You can also differentiate books by their date of publication. Periodical articles or websites can be differentiated by the title of the magazine or the name of the overall website.
* You are citing a source by two authors
Use both authors’ last names, for example (Sendak and Seuss 6).
* You have two authors with the same last name Use their initial(s) for example (M.Sendak 6).
* You have more than one source by the same author Include the title, for example (Sendak, Where 6).
* You are using a quote that appears not in its original source
This is also known as an ‘indirect source’. Use the phrase “qtd. in”. So if Sendak was in fact reporting what Max had said to a newspaper reporter about his encounter with the monsters, I would write this Max said that the monsters had “rolled their terrible eyes” (qtd. in Sendak 6).
* You have a long quote
If you are quoting more than four lines of prose or three lines of poetry, don’t use quotation marks but do put the quote on a new line and indent the left and right margins. Put a colon at the end of your own text before the quote starts and the parenthetical reference at the end of the quote itself.
Citing images in your work Images should be used to explain or emphasize what you are talking about in your text, and not merely to make things ‘look pretty’. Adding the bibliographic details (who made the image, when and its title) shows deeper thought. Unless the image is free from copyright (public domain) you need to have the owner’s permission to use it. Consider making your own artwork or taking a photograph yourself. Clipart does not have to be cited. Here are two ways of dealing with images in your work – be consistent and use only one. These examples use a photograph that Nathalie took and gave me permission to reproduce. a) The first is the simplest, just put the full bibliographic detail under the image. You do not need to put the details into your works cited/bibliography. For example:
Morrissey, Nathalie. Mystery Reader Behind Their Favourite Book. Photograph. 2008.
b) However if you have a large number of images, a neater way is as follows. Give the image a number (starting with Figure 1) followed by a brief explanation. Then have a separate ‘List of Illustrations’ after your bibliography. For example:
Figure 1. The monsters in Where the Wild Things Are were really scary. Followed by the bibliographic entry in a ‘List of Illustrations’. Figure 1. Morrissey, Nathalie. Mystery Reader Behind Her Favourite Book. Photograph. 2008.
Remember ISA uses MLA format and that you can create your works cited list (bibliography) in Noodlebib access via the library website www.isa.nl/library Donna Saxby, Library, ISA, 2010