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Step 7: Cite Your Sources
What
is a citation?
A citation is a method of documenting where an idea, a piece
of information, or a quote in your paper came from. For instance:
| Citation within your paper: |
Medieval Europe was a place
both of "raids, pillages, slaver, and extortion"
and of "traveling merchants, monetary exchange, towns
if not cities, and active markets in grain" (Townsend
10). |
| Corresponding
reference at the end of your paper: |
Townsend, Robert
M. The Medieval Village Economy. Princeton: Princeton
UP, 1993. |
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Why
cite sources?
When you cite your sources you give credit to those
people whose ideas you used in your research. This means that
even when you don't use a direct quotation from an author,
you need to give them credit if you have used any of their
ideas in your paper. Another reason to cite your sources is
so that anyone reading your paper will have accurate references
for future study. Failure to cite your sources constitutes
plagiarism.
How
to Cite
Different disciplines rely on different citation
methods. Which should you use? Ask each of your teachers
which style they want you to use. If they have no preference,
you can use any or follow these guidelines:
APA: psychology, education, and
other social sciences.
MLA: literature, arts, and humanities.
Turabian: designed for college students to use
with all subjects. This style is particularly popular
with history scholars.
General Instructions for
Citing
Citing sources you have used in your paper consists of two
steps:
1. Citing within the text of your paper
with either parenthetical references or footnotes. Here
you provide the exact page number for the passage you are
citing, so that anyone reading your paper can go back and
find the same information you found.
2. Providing a comprehensive list of all
the works you have cited. This is called a Works Cited Page,
or a Bibliography, depending on which citation style you
are using. Items on this list are ordered alphabetically
by the author's last name.
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