LibGuides Global Boxes: Citations

The animation above illustrates elements of a journal article cited in the APA format.

The animation above shows an article cited in the APA format (view non-animated version). 

To distinguish an article from other kinds of sources, look for:

• A journal title in addition to an article title
• Numbers for volume and/or issue, and sometime issue dates or seasons (e.g. Spring 2014).
• Page numbers
• No place of publication or publisher name is listed

Citations for articles accessed online often list the article's stable URL at the end of the citation:

• Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2003.72.4.669

The animation above shows a book cited in the APA format (view non-animated version). 

To distinguish a book from other kinds of sources, look for:

• Place of publication (e.g. Berkeley, CA)
• Publisher name (e.g. Ten Speed Press)
• No dates, other than a year, are usually included

The animation above shows a single chapter from a book cited in the APA format (view non-animated version). 

To distinguish a book chapter from other kinds of sources, look for:

• Chapter/essay title and book title
• Author and editor name(s)
• Page numbers for the chapter
• Publisher name and place of publication

Electronic books come in a variety of forms.  Some are accessed through our catalogs and databases and read over the Internet on a computer screen.  Others can be downloaded to a computer and in some cases to mobile devices. 

As the technologies of e-books are evolving, so are the formats for citing them in footnotes and bibliographies.  Here are guides to citing e-books in the three most common styles:

• APA (American Psychological Association) - see the section on "Electronic Books"
• MLA (Modern Language Association) - see the section on "Basic Style for Citations of Electronic Sources"
• Chicago - see the section on "Electronic Books and Books Consulted Online"

For more information, see:

• E-Books' Varied Formats Make Citations a Mess for Scholars (Chronicle of Higher Education)
• Citing Your Sources

Thanks to Purdue University for permission to use their citation guides.

You do allow embedded content.

An overview of citation management software.

Feeding Pigeons by Poddington Bear is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. 

If you've never used Zotero before, use the QuickStart Guide to get started.

Change your preferences if you want  Zotero to

• set your default citation style
• search the full text of pdfs you save
• Automatically attach associated PDFs and other files when saving items

To use Zotero to find specific articles in our library's databases, set up the Open URL resolver with this link: http://ucelinks.cdlib.org:8888/sfx_local? 

An in-depth discussion of the relative virtues of Endnote and Zotero.

In order to avoid plagiarism, you must give credit when

• You use another person's ideas, opinions, or theories.
• You use facts, statistics, graphics, drawings, music, etc., or any other type of information that does not comprise common knowledge.
• You use quotations from another person's spoken or written word.
• You paraphrase another person's spoken or written word.

Recommendations

• Begin the writing process by stating your ideas; then go back to the author's original work.
• Use quotation marks and credit the source (author) when you copy exact wording.
• Use your own words (paraphrase) instead of copying directly when possible.
• Even when you paraphrase another author's writings, you must give credit to that author.
• If the form of citation and reference are not correct, the attribution to the original author is likely to be incomplete. Therefore, improper use of style can result in plagiarism. Get a style manual and use it.

This content is part of the Understanding Plagiarism tutorial created by the Indiana University School of Education.

Why cite sources?
Whenever you quote or base your ideas on another person's work, you must document the source you used. Even when you do not quote directly from another work, if reading that source contributed to the ideas presented in your paper, you must give the authors proper credit.

Citations allow readers to locate and further explore the sources you consulted, show the depth and scope of your research, and give credit to authors for their ideas. Citations provide evidence for your arguments and add credibility to your work by demonstrating that you have sought out and considered a variety of resources. In written academic work, citing sources is standard practice and shows that you are responding to this person, agreeing with that person, or adding something of your own. Think of documenting your sources as providing a trail for your reader to follow to see the research you performed and discover what led you to your original contribution.

By following these guidelines, you avoid plagiarism, which is a serious violation of Berkeley'sCode of Conduct.

How do you cite sources? 
The means to identify sources is to provide citations within your text linking appropriate passages to relevant resources consulted or quoted. This can be done through in-text parenthetic notes, footnotes, or endnotes. In addition, a bibliography or list of works cited is almost always placed at the end of your paper. The citation system and format you use will be determined by the citation style assigned.

Below are links to guides for the three major styles used for most academic papers or research in the humanities, social sciences, and some scientific disciplines:

• APA Style Guide (Purdue) - From the American Psychological Association. Often preferred in the fields of psychology and many other social sciences.
• MLA Style Guide (Purdue) - From the Modern Language Association of America. Often preferred in the fields of literature, arts, humanities, and in some other disciplines.
• Chicago Manual of Style Guide, 16th Ed. (Purdue) - From the University of Chicago Press. Often preferred in history and many other disciplines.

Where do I find the most authoritative information about these styles?
If you have questions or citations not covered by the guides linked to here, consult one of the following official style manuals. If you consult other, less official manuals or online style guides that purport to explain these style, please be aware that these sometimes contain errors which conflict with the official guides or may refer to earlier editions.

APA Style

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2010 (call number: BF76.7.P83 2010, multiple libraries). Official APA style guide.

 

MLA Style

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009 (call number: LB2369.G53 2009, multiple libraries). A somewhat simplified guide, adequate for undergraduate and most other research papers.

 

MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008 (call number: PN147.G444 2008, multiple libraries). For graduate students, scholars, and professional writers (more depth on copyright, legal issues, and writing theses, dissertations, and scholarly publishing).

 

Chicago Style

The Chicago Manual of Style. 16th ed. 

Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996 (call number: LB2369.T8 1996, multiple libraries).

Rao, Aditi. "How to Cite Social Media: MLA and APA formats." TeachBytes, 04.09.13.  Web. 24 February, 2015.

Also, Purdue's Online Writing Lab MLA guide to citing online resources.

Reference managers (also called citation managers or bibliographic management software) offer a way to save, organize and manage references. Many work with word processing software to format in-text citations and bibliographies for papers and theses, allow you to share references, and enable you to attach or link PDFs to a citation record.

Wikipedia comparison of reference management software

RefWorks

• Free to UC Berkeley users
• Web-based: use at any computer with internet access
• Format bibliographies in Word
• Import citations from RSS feeds
• Use UC-eLinks to find the full text of articles from within RefWorks
• Share lists of references or create a group account for co-editing
• From ProQuest

Zotero

• Free (up to 300 MB web storage) browser extension
• Sync Zotero to access your library from any computer with internet access
• Format bibliographies in Word and OpenOffice
• Capture citation data from PDFs and web pages
• Share and collaboratively edit lists of references
• Open source software from the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University