Documenting Sources, MLA Style



From the

College Writing Center

Documenting Sources, APA Style

Purposes for Documenting

• Distinguish between your own ideas and those from your sources of information

• Enable your readers to find your sources and read them more thoroughly

• Protect yourself from charges of academic dishonesty (plagiarism)

What You Need

• Sources of information (and ideas about how to find them)

• A reference (handbook or appropriate website) to guide your formatting

A Foolproof Process for Creating a Bibliography (References)—in this order!

1. For each source you find, immediately write down all the identifying information you’ll need for your bibliography (References), such as:

✓ Author’s name

✓ Title of article or document

✓ Title of publication or website

✓ Place of publication and publisher (book)

✓ Date of publication (or posting for an Internet source)

✓ Most recent date of access (for an Internet site)

✓ Volume and issue numbers (for periodicals)

✓ Etc. (other types of sources may call for other kinds of information)

Example: What Drucker taught us about social responsibility. William A. Cohen, Leader to Leader, Winter2009, Vol. 2009 Issue 51, p29-34, 6p; Academic Search Premier (AN 35755461), Feb. 8, 2009.

2. To prepare your bibliography (References), format properly the entry for each source. (This is where you need a reference to guide you; you can’t guess on this step. Such guides include writing handbooks available in the Writing Center as well as certain online sites, listed at the end of this document.)

✓ Identify the kind of source

✓ Locate that kind in your reference

✓ Read the guidelines and study the examples (identify the “slots”)

✓ Follow the guidelines and mimic the example

Example: The Cohen article is in a monthly journal that starts each issue on page 1. Therefore, to format the References entry, I looked in the APA section of a handbook (A Writer’s Resource, Third Edition) for the correct format for a monthly journal article in a journal that starts each issue on page 1 (i.e. “paginated by issue”). It gave me this advice: “Include the issue number (in parentheses). The issue number is not italicized.” (Maimon, Peritz, & Yancey, 2010, p. 336). Then it offered this example: (next page ()

Epstein, J. (2002). A voice in the wilderness. Latin Trade, 10(12), 26.

So I took the information I had written down and formatted it according to that instruction and example:

Cohen, W.A. (2009). What Drucker taught us about social responsibility.

Leader to Leader, 2009(51), 29-34.

[pic]

Because I had accessed the article through an online database (Academic Search Premier in the EBSCOhost databases), I then checked the handbook for the format for an article through a subscription service. The instructions told me to add to my entry the electronic information and provided an example (Maimon, Peritz, & Yancey, 2010, p. 342). Therefore, the complete entry now reads as follows:

Cohen, W.A. (2009). What Drucker taught us about social responsibility.

Leader to Leader, 2009 (51), 29-34. Retrieved from Academic

Search Premier database.

3. Once you’ve formatted each entry, arrange them in alphabetical order according to the first word in each entry. Here’s what Diana Hacker’s website says:

“General guidelines for listing authors

Alphabetize entries in the list of references by authors’ last names; if a work has no author, alphabetize it by its title. The first element of each entry is important because citations in the text of the paper refer to it and readers will be looking for it in the alphabetized list (my emphasis). The date of publication appears immediately after the first element of the citation” (Hacker, APA list of references).

Example:

References

Cavanagh, G. (2009). What's good for business?. America, 200(4), 20-22. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Cohen, W. (2009). What Drucker taught us about social responsibility. Leader to Leader, 2009(51), 29-34. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

CONSUMERIST'S BIGGEST BUSINESS DEBACLES. (2008). Advertising Age, Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Doing good business. (2008). Lancet, Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Klein, K. (2008). Making the Case for Business Ethics. Business Week Online, Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Wartzman, R. (2008). A Time for Ethical Self-Assessment. Business Week Online, p. 7. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Incorporating Sources in Your Report

• In-text citations: The commonly explained technique for citing sources in the body of your writing is referred to as in-text (or parenthetical) citations. The basic approach is to place a set of parentheses right after any element that you have either quoted, paraphrased, or summarized from one or more of your sources. There is a particular format you must employ for what goes inside the parentheses, and again you need to use a reference to guide you; you can’t guess.

The basic format is to place the first word of the entry for that source from your References list--often the author’s last name(s)--followed by a comma, then the year of the publication, followed by a comma, then the page number(s) from which the information is taken. The period ending the sentence goes after the parentheses. There are variations to this, however, depending on the context— which is why you need to refer to a source to guide you.

Example: One idea to improve business people’s ethical sense is that they should be exposed to liberal arts courses in the humanities, philosophy, and religion (Cavanagh, 2009, p. 20). Note: If you didn’t have the author’s last name, this would read (What’s, 2009, p.20).

• Using attribution: Attribution is a technique by which you incorporate the identity of your source into your own sentence. Not only can you name the source but you can also include some of your source’s credentials. Doing so not only improves your credibility (because you show that you’re using reliable sources), but it also creates more fluid writing as you weave together the varying pieces of information and opinions about your topic. How much you include in your attribution will also affect how much information you put in the parentheses of the in-text citation that follows.

Example with attribution: [pic]

According to Gerald F. Cavanagh, author and Professor of Management at the University of Detroit Mercy, writing for the journal America, “Liberal education with a core in the humanities, philosophy and theology can provide a foundation from which educators can clarify ethical issues and provide critical principles to aid business people” (2009, p. 20).

Taking Notes: Summarizing, Paraphrasing, Quoting (best advice: use 3x5 or 4x6 notecards)

• Summarizing = re-expression of key information and main ideas from large chunks (multi-paragraph, entire articles)

• Paraphrasing = re-expression of all ideas and information from sentences and short paragraphs

• Quoting = exact copying of a passage from a source

Taking Notes: Notecard Elements

1. The note (summarized, paraphrased, or quoted)

2. Identity of the source (in “code”)

3. The page number, if appropriate

4. A heading

Example:

Some Helpful websites:

--Purdue’s online site for APA

--APA Documentation

--Diana Hacker’s website for APA documentation

--website that assists in formatting entries for APA (and other styles)

-----------------------

A

p. 20 Liberal education

Catholic business schools can offer ethical education through liberal arts courses: humanities, philosophy, religion.

(Abbreviated version: Cath. bus. schools offer eth. ed. thru lib. arts: human,, phil., relig.)

Source code

Page number

Heading

Note—a quote

Just notes—not properly formatted yet.

Electronic location “slot”

Author “slot”

Date “slot”

Title “slot”

Publication “slot”, incl. vol., issue, & page

The attribution

Note—a paraphrase

Note

I’ve already named the source in my attribution.

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