You cite a source by making a notation or signal in your paper that refers your reader to a place where you give full publication data about the source. For all types of assignments (papers, problem sets, take-home exams, computer programs, lab and other reports) and for all types of sources (expert and student, printed and on-line; textual, numerical, graphic, and oral), you should cite on the following occasions:
(a) Whenever you use factual information or data you found in a source, so your reader knows who gathered the information and where to find its original form. (But see "common knowledge," section 2.2b.)
(b) Whenever you quote verbatim two or more words in a row, or even a single word or label that's distinctive or striking, so the reader can verify the accuracy and context of your quotation, and will credit the source for craftin g the exact formulation. Words you take verbatim from another person also need to be put in quotation marks, even if you take only two or three words; it's not enough simply to cite. If you go on to use the quoted word or phrase repeatedly in your paper, however, as part of your analytic vocabulary, you don't need to cite it each subsequent timeÑprovided you have established the source initially.
(c) Whenever you summarize, paraphrase, or otherwise use ideas, opinions, interpretations, or conclusions arrived at by another person so your readers know that you are summarizing thoughts formulated by someone else, whose author ity your citation invokes, and whose formulations readers can consult and check against your summary.
(d) Whenever you make use of a source passage's distinctive structure, organizing strategy, or method, such as the way an argument is divided into distinct parts or sections or kinds, or a distinction is made between two aspects o f a problem; or such as a particular procedure for studying some phenomenon (in a text, in the laboratory, in the field) that was developed by a certain person or group. Citing tells your readers that the strategy or method isn't original with you and all ows them to consult its original context.
(e) Whenever you mention in passing some aspect of another person's work, unless that work is very widely known, so readers know where they can follow up on the reference.
When you're in doubt as to whether to cite a source or not, cite. Note that these rules apply even to sources assigned as readings for a class or included in its sourcebook, to sources that merely summarize other sources, and to lectures. The fact that your instructor will instantly recognize your use of a course text doesn't change the need to acknowledge it. Your goal is to write an argument persuasive to all interested readers, not just to your instructor. Again, it might seem unnecessary to cite bac kground infor-mation to your argument, such as an account of a work's historical context or a survey of previous work done on the topic. But even if these matters are common knowledge in the field, if your knowledge of them isn't first-hand, your r eader needs to know where your version of the background facts came from.
Finally, since a lecture is a carefully constructed presentation by an authority in the field, and may itself draw on other authorities, you should cite if you use a distinctive idea, phrase, or piece of information from a lecture. Some instructors may want you to regard their lectures, for the purposes of their class only, as common knowledge not to be cited; but you should ask about this before using lecture material.
| WHEN QUOTING OR CITING A PASSAGE YOU FOUND QUOTED OR CITED BY ANOTHER SCHOLAR |
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When qouting or citing a passage you found quoted or cited by another scholar, and you haven't actually read the original source, cite the passage as "quoted in" or "cited in" that scholarÑboth to credit that person for finding the quot
ed passage or cited text, and to protect yourself in case he or she has misquoted.or misrepresented (see "Indirect Source" p. 44). Always read for yourself any source that's important to your argument, rather than relying on an abstract or a summary in a
nother source. |
If you find yourself citing sources for almost everything in your paper, or for entire paragraphs, you are probably giving too much rehash of other people's ideas and need to generate more ideas of your own. But you may also be citing when you don't need to, as on the following occasions:
(a) When the source and page-location of the relevant passage are obvious from a citation earlier in your own paragraph. If you refer to the same page in your source for many sentences in a row, you don't need to cite the source a gain until you refer to a different page in it or start a new paragraph of your paper (as the student in CHapter 1 doesn't give a page reference for lines 11-14). Note, however, that your language needs constantly to make clear where you are drawing on a sourc e, not giving your own ideas, by using phrasing like "Aristotle further observes that ...." It isn't enough, when your paragraph draws repeatedly on a source, simply to give a single citation at the start or end of that paragraphÑunless you write each sentence to preclude ambiguity about where the words, ideas, or information come from.
(b) When dealing with "common knowledge," knowledge that is familiar or easily available in many different sources (including encyc-lopedias, dictionaries, basic textbooks) and isn't arguable or based on a particular interpretatio n. The date of the Stock Market Crash, the distance to Saturn, the structure of the American congress, the date of birth of the discoverer of DNA: this is commonly available knowledge. In the paper excerpted on pp. 4-5, the student doesn't need to cite he r passing reference to Freud's notion of "oral fixation" (line 5), or to the fact that gentlemen used to have an after-dinner cigar separate from the ladies (line 32). If she had gone on to say that this after-dinner ritual occured even in matriarchal so cietiesÑan unfamiliar ideaÑshe would have needed to cite a source. Obviously, what counts as "common knowledge" varies from situation to situation; when in doubt, askÑor cite anyway, to be safe. Note that when you draw a great deal of information from a single source, you should cite that source even if the information is common knowledge, since the source (and its particular way of organizing the information) has made a significant contribution to your paper.
(c) When you use phrases that have become part of everyday speech: you don't need to remind your reader where "all the world's a stage" or "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" first appeared, or even to put such phrases i n quotation marks.
(d) When you draw on ideas or phrases that arose in conversation with a friend, classmate, or Teaching FellowÑincluding conversation in section and by e-mail or other electronic media. You should acknowledge help of this kind, how ever, in a note (see section 2.4 below). Be aware that these people may be themselves using phrases and ideas from their reading or lectures; if you write a paper that depends heavily on an idea you heard in conversation with som eone, you should check with that person about the source of the idea. Also be aware that no Teaching Fellow will appreciate your incorporating his or her ideas verbatim into your paper, but will rather expect you to express the ideas in your own way and to develop them.
When you cite sources is more important than how you cite them, but knowing how makes it easier to know when. The basic requirements are to give your reader enough information to locate your source, and to be clear and consistent in the way you give it. "Enough" information means the author's name, the title of the item and of any volume that includes it, the date of the volume's publication, and often the particular page number to which you refer. When the volume is a journal, you need to give its volu me number and the inclusive page numbers of the item; when it's a book, you need to give the place of publication and usually the name of the publisher. On-line, oral, and other sources require further information.
Several recognized styles of presenting this information are detailed in Appendices A and B. Most styles use one of three basic methods:
(a) Sequential Notes: In this method, you insert a raised reference numeral into your paper after a sentence in which you use source-materialÑor, if required for clear attribution, after a particular phrase in the middle of your sentence. This numeral refers your reader to a note at the bottom of the page (footnotes) or end of the paper (endnotes) that begins with the same numeral and gives information about the source. In
the raised 7 refers the reader to this note that gives source and page:Diamond suggests that humans share the same "unconscious instinct" that makes birds give dangerous displays.7
7. Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 199.
Citing by footnotes or endnotes adds minimal clutter into the body of your paper, and it disrupts the flow of your sentences less than other citation methods.
(b) In-Text Citing: In this method you indicate in the text of your paper itself not only the name of the source author, but also either the number of the specific page on which the information, idea, or passage is found (i n the humanities) or the year in which the source was published (in the social sciences and sciences), or both (in a social-sciences variation). The author's name may appear in the sentence itself or in parentheses; the page number or year o f publication always appears in parentheses. This sentence uses author-page style:
Physiologist Jared Diamond proposes that self-destructive human actions are an evolutionary signal of superior powers (196).
This uses author-year style:
Recent explanations suggest that such actions are evolutionary signals of superior powers (Diamond, 1992).
And this uses author-year-page style:
Diamond (1992: 196) has proposed that self-destructive human actions are an evolutionary signal of superior powers. (3)
These signals in the sentence refer the reader, in author-page citing, to an alphabetical list of "Works Cited" whose entries look like this:
Since author-page citing keeps the exact page-location in the source attached to your use of the source passage in your paper, it works well for papers about longer texts, and for literary or philosophical papers that quote and examine passages closely or examine many different passages from the same source. See pages 32-3 and 40-51 for details of MLA style.
- Diamond, Jared. The Third Chimpanzee: The Future and
- Evolution of the Human Animal.
New York: Harper Collins, 1992.
Author-year and author-year-page signals refer to an alphabetical list of "References," whose format emphasizes date of publication:
- Diamond, J. (1992). The third chimpanzee: The future and
- evolution of the human animal.
New York: Harper Collins.
Author-year citing emphasizes year, rather than page number, because in a Biology or Psychology paper you are usually citing authors who over the years have written many short papers on a subject, in a steady process of developing, testing, and correcting hypotheses. And you are usually citing those papers for their main idea or findingÑnot for a particular aspect or section of a paper, or for the wording of a particular passage. Author-year-page style accommodates social scientists (like anthropologists) who work as often with passages from books as with articles. Pages 35-6 and 40-51 give specifics of APA, CBE, and an author-year-page style.
(c) Coding: Many journals in the sciences require you to identify each of your sources by a symbol or markerÑusually a numeral but sometimes an initial letter of one or more author surnames. This numeral or letter appears in parentheses or brackets in your paper each time you refer to that source, and it refers to a list of "References" at the end of the paper. Often sources are coded by order of their first mention in the paper. This sentence cites the third source mentioned :
Recent explanations have suggested that such actions are evolutionary signals of superior powers (3).
Even if this source is cited again, late in the paper, it is still identified by its code number (3); and it appears third in your list of references. In another version of the method, sources are coded by their number in an alphabetic list of referencesÑ in which case the (3) in the example above would refer to the third source in the alphabetic list. Or, if you were coding by initials, Diamond might be cited at the end of the sentence as [D], and listed after the symbol [D] in an alphabetical list of re ferences. An article by Wallace, Dobbs, and Hershey might be coded as [WDH].
Like footnoting, coding has the advantage of requiring little apparatus in your text. And like in-text citing, it eliminates the need to make a note each time you use a certain source. It's appropriate for papers in the sciences, including Biology, Physi cs, Chemistry, and Math, where sources are mostly brief articles that you don't directly quote.