Citations Part 1: When to Source and Bibliographic Information

By Sofia Zanabria, Editing Assistant

Citing resources is perhaps the most confusing and painstaking portion of academic writing. For the novice, the plethora of rules and choices involved in citation can be truly frightening. However, it doesn’t need to be quite so painful. Here’s our crash course on citation.

First, it is essential to understand when to cite. As a writer, it is your responsibility to give credit where credit is due and respect copyright laws. Citing your sources also helps to prop up your arguments and cement your credibility. Statistics, facts that are not common knowledge, and direct quotes or paraphrases of a source’s ideas should all be cited. You do not need to cite familiar proverbs, well-known quotes, or anything that can be considered common knowledge. You will often have to make judgment calls; but when in doubt, cite.

As you are researching a subject it is useful to keep all necessary bibliographic information for every source used, so that you may later use this information in your citations and organize it into a reference list. The following is a list of elements commonly included in bibliographies for different source forms:

Book

• Author’s full name, last name first
• Full title
• Editor, compiler, or translator name
• Edition, volume
• Title of individual volume
• Series title
• Place of publication
• Publisher
• Date of publication
• Page numbers

Magazine

• Author
• Title of article
• Title of magazine
• Issue information (volume, issue number, day, month, year)
• Page numbers

Newspaper

• Author
• Title of article
• Title of paper
• Day, month, year
• Edition
• Page numbers

Dictionary/Encyclopedia

• Title of reference
• Edition
• Item referenced/title of article
• Year of publication

Online Source

• Author
• Title of article/page
• Name of database
• Version number, date of version/revision/posting
• Institution/organization affiliated with site
• Publication information
• Date accessed
• Web address within< >
  

Look for part 2 of this topic later this month, when we’ll discuss the different citation systems and style guides.