A Brief Guide To Documenting and Quoting Sources

MLA (name & page)
APA (name & date) 
Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style (superscripts and footnotes) 

See Avoiding Plagiarism for more information on quoting and paraphrasing correctly.

Overview of Documentation Styles

The three most common documentation/citation formats used in college writing are the MLA, which is widely used in the Humanities, the APA, used in the sciences and social sciences, and the Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style, used in Philosophy, History and the Fine Arts. 

APA and MLA use parenthetical citations in the text, rather than superscript numbers. The MLA uses name/page (Miller 43); the APA name/year/page (Miller, 1973, p. 54). For both systems, sources are documented in a "Works Cited" or "References" list.

The Turabian system of using superscript numbers (for example, "to me."3) with footnotes or endnotes (using ibid' and op.cit. for repeated reference) is still used in some fields in the Fine Arts and Humanities ( but not Literature). Unless specifically instructed to use this system, you should use MLA or APA. They are easier to work with and you are less likely to make errors with them.

Documentation styles vary considerably, and sometimes instructors prefer a style not usually used in their field. Whatever you do, ask what style to use before you begin your research.

 MLA Citation

1. All references are documented in the text with a name-page citation (Miller 73). The citation should come at the end of the sentence unless the reference pertains only to a part of the sentence.

2. Punctuation. Parenthetical citations are usually placed between the end of the last word of the sentence and the period. For in-text quotes, the proper punctuation is: He said, "You can't do that to me" (Dogwood 43). For block quotations, the parenthetical citation comes after the period:

Dogwood's prose is a combination of clichés about the underworld and stilted efforts to sound tough. Yet, the more comical and inarticulate his characters sound, the more they come to sound authentic. They're not authentically criminal but authentically Dogwood. (Kurtz 87)

3. When you refer to two or more works by the same author, use a short title to clarify which work you're referring to: (Mel

4. Works without an author are referred to by title: ("Where's Bush Going?" 10).

5. Citations in the "Works Cited" are alphabetical, first line flush with the margin, subsequent lines indented, in the following format. (See a documentation guide for more details.)

Book: Author. Title. Publisher's City: Publisher, Date Published.

     Lobdell, Jared. England and Always: Tolkien's             World of the Rings. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans             Press, 1981.

Article: Author. "Article Title." Magazine or Journal Volume Number (Year): pages on which the article appears. 

      Ramsey, Jarold. "The Wife Who Goes Out Like                  a Man, Comes Back as a Hero: The Art of Two             Oregon Indian Narratives." PMLA 92 (1977):            9-18.

 APA Citation


1. If you mention the author whom you are quoting or referring to in the text, you may simply follow his name with the year the article or book was published. If you are referring to a specific passage in the source, add a page reference at the end:

Smith (1983) ascribes "no species-specific behavior to man" (p. 211).

2. If you do not mention the author in the text, the citation should be by name, year the source was published, and page or pages:

It has recently been demonstrated that violent behavior may be a product of chemical imbalances in the brain (Smith, 1987, pp. 233-37).

3. If you have more than one citation to the same author for the same year, distinguish citations by adding a letter to the date: (Smith, 1987a, pp. 330-45)

4. Citations are listed in "References" alphabetically in the following format. When there are multiple citations to the same author, list chronologically:

Book: Last name, first initial. (year published). Title. City: Publisher. 

     Gould, S. (1987). The Mismeasure of Man. New York:            Norton.

Journal: Last Name, First initial. (Year). Article Title. Journal, volume number, pages. [Note that words in the article title are not capitalized.] 

     Anderson, J. R. (1972). Recognition and retrieval             processing free recall. Psychological Review, 79,             97-123.

 

Chicago Manual of Style/Turabian Citation

1. Use superscript numerals at the end of the quotation or paraphrase. The number should follow immediately after the final word or punctuation. (Note: Superscript characters may not appear on this screen.)

Natsume Soseki is known as "the father of modern Japanese literature."3

2. Use superscripts to number the notes consecutively throughout the entire paper.

3. Citations can appear as footnotes or endnotes depending on the preference of your professor

Footnotes : notes for each page are complied at the bottom of that page.

  • Single space the footnotes.
  • Indent the first line 5 spaces following this indention with a superscript numeral and the first word of the note. Again there is no space between the number and the first letter of the note
  • Separate footnotes from the text by triple spacing or by a twelve-space bar line from the left margin.

Endnotes:

  • The complete list of notes is compiled and placed at the end of the paper on a page entitled "Notes."
  • "Notes" should be centered and placed two inches from the top of the page.
  • Double space the notes.
  • The first page of "Notes" is unnumbered, but number all other pages of endnotes .

Book: First name Last name, Title (City: Publisher, year), page. 

     W.V. Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,             1966),8.

Journal: First name Last name, "Article Title," Journal Title, Volume number (year): pages. 

     G.S. Boolos, "On Second-Order Logic," Journal             of Philosophy,72 (1975): 590-610.

For subsequent footnote and endnote references, according to the Chicago Manual of Style, you can shorten the reference if you have used the full reference once. In the shortened reference you must include the author's name and the page number. If you are citing more than one book by the same author, include a shortened title of the book or article (i.e. "Jones, Pain, 25."). Similarly, whenever a note refers to the source in the immediately preceding note, you may use "Ibid" with a page number (i.e. "Ibid., 27.").

Works Cited vs. Bibliography: A "Works Cited" or "References" page lists only works cited in the text. A bibliography is a list of works pertinent to the subject, even if they are not cited in the text. Bibliographies are often categorized as "selective," meaning that these are works the author thinks are important to the subject, or "comprehensive, meaning that the author has listed all the works pertinent to the subject, so far as this is possible. Bibliographies are also sometimes broken down by subjects.