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Citing Sources

Two types of citations: Full Citations
and In-text Citations

-Document all of your sources.  The easiest thing to do is to start your list of works cited (the information and sources you used in your paper/project) right away!  Start documenting on day 1 of your research and you’ll save time and energy along the way.

A Full Citation is what appears at the end of your paper in your Works Cited.  It contains all the information your teacher (or anyone reading your paper) needs to know about the source.  It includes the title of the work, the author, the medium (ex: print, web, interview), the date of publication, etc.  Different sources require different information.  For instance, a book source requires the city of publication but a website citation does not.

An in-text citation appears in the body of your paper.  It is a parenthetical citation that contains abbreviated source information after a quote or paraphrased section.  It lets your reader know that the information comes from a source other than yourself and gives them enough information to find the full accompanying citation at the end.

 Sometimes an in-text citation includes the author’s last name, like this one:

The sisters are introduced three pages in, and like the girl detective who can and does adopt disguises with ease, they are under the guise of “tap-dancing bank robbers” (Link 243). 

 Other times, the author’s last name appears in the sentence, so the citation only needs to contain the page numbers:

In an effort to understand this complex character, Kelly Link’s narrator is “detecting the girl detective” (243).

In both of these examples, the author’s name (Link) is listed and the page number these quotes are from is easily visible because it is in the parenthetical citation.  In-text citations allow your teacher to know that he/she could pick up the book or website you cited, turn to the page you noted, and find the information you’ve provided. 

The citation for the examples above belongs at the end of the paper:

Link, Kelly. “The Girl Detective.”  Stranger Things Happen. Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press. 2001. Print.


      See here for Sample Citations: Sample Citations.pdf

 


There are many other types of citations you may need to create for your assignments.  For more examples and information visit the Purdue Owl website or Easybib.com