How to Do Citations?
What Are Citations in Writing?
Citations are used in academic writing to let the reader know the source of ideas, opinions, and language the author has drawn from others and incorporated into a text. Citations are required when a person incorporates facts and information obtained from another source. But, they are not essential when mentioning a fact that is common knowledge. Citations should be used when directly quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, or referencing someone else's work.
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What Is an In-Text Citation?
In-text citations are parenthetical references used in sentences in the body of a paper or essay to let the reader know the source of the information, opinion, or language used in the sentence. Inside parentheses, the author and the year of publication of the source are mentioned. Sometimes, it is along with the page number from which the information, opinion, or language was taken.
Citations
When you are writing, sometimes you want to use a fact that you didn't find out for yourself. For example, you might want to use the fact that the planet Earth is 238,855 miles from the moon, but you're not super-thrilled about the idea of building your own spaceship and flying up to check for yourself. That's where citations come in.
In academic writing, you can look up someone else's measurement of the distance between the earth and the moon, and then use it in your own work with a citation. A citation tells the reader where you got information or an idea from. It's a way to credit other people for putting in the hard work of actually flying to the moon to check so you don't have to. Here are some example sentences that could be in your paper:
- According to NASA, the earth is 238,855 miles from the moon (NASA Space Place).
- Experts in astronomy agree that the moon and the earth are ''really far apart'' (NASA Space Place).
You have to cite every fact in your paper that you found out from someone else, unless the fact is common knowledge. For example, you don't have to cite the fact that Washington, D.C., is the capital of the USA: everyone knows that. But, you do have to cite the fact that Congress first met in Washington, D.C., on November 17, 1800, because most people don't know that. When in doubt - cite. You will never get in trouble for citing something unnecessarily, but you can get in trouble for not citing when you should have.
Also, use citations any time you quote someone else's words or use someone else's ideas. Here are some more examples:
- Winston Churchill has a very high opinion of the Duke of Marlborough, referring to his ''genius…in the field and his sagacity in counsel'' (Churchill 38).
- Winston Churchill strongly approved of Queen Anne's decision to place the Duke of Marlborough in supreme command of her armies (38).
Academic books can have thousands of citations, so everyone wants to keep them short. So, we've come up with several ways to squeeze all the information you need into short, easy-to-read citations. In this lesson, you'll learn two major ways to cite sources: APA style and MLA style. It does feel really nitpicky at first, and it's kind of annoying to pay attention to, but it's important to give other people credit for their ideas.
In both MLA and APA styles, you'll have a bibliography at the end of your paper. The bibliography lists every single source you took facts or ideas from, with enough information that the reader can find the exact same source. Then, in your in-text citations, refer readers to particular works in the bibliography and tell them where to look within each work. For APA, you'd label this page 'References' but for MLA, you'd label this page 'Works Cited'.
How to Write Citations
When writing citations for a paper or essay, two kinds of citations are used:
- In-text citations appear throughout the paper
- Longer citations are grouped together at the end of the paper, in a Reference List or Works Cited page.
Citations in a Reference List or Works Cited page typically include the author's name, the title of the source, publisher, and date of publication. Depending on the citation style and format of the source, the place of publication and URL may also be included.
While in-text citations are relatively similar when referring to a book, article, or other types of media in the body of a paper, the longer citations are different. To understand how to do citations for these types of sources correctly, a writer consults a citation style guide. Online citation style guides can be found on university websites, like Purdue University's Online Writing Lab.
There are several ways that a writer can create citations. Citations can be typed directly in a word-processing application. Alternatively, word-processing applications may include a citation tool that can assist a writer in formatting citations. Stand-alone online citation generators and reference management software can also help a writer create citations. Citation generators include CitationMachine and Opendemia. Reference management software such as Zotero can also create citations. Writers need to check automatically generated citations for accuracy, however. Aspects of citation style, such as capitalization, may not be produced correctly by online citation generators.
How to Make In-Text Citations
In-text citations are parenthetical references that are added to sentences in the body of a paper or essay to let the reader know the source of the information, opinion, or language used in the sentence. In-text citations typically include only 2 or 3 pieces of information, such as the author's last name, year of publication, and/or page number. This information is sufficient for the reader to locate the corresponding longer citation in the Works Cited page or Reference List.
To understand how in-text citations are created, it is essential to know what style or type of citation is appropriate for the paper. Each discipline has a citation style that is commonly used. The instructions for a paper typically indicate which citation style is appropriate.
Types of Citations
Several different systems are used to format citations. Common systems are MLA, APA, and Chicago style. Each subject or discipline tends to use one of these systems more often than other systems. In all these systems, a parenthetical reference is placed inside a sentence, and the period comes at the end of the sentence.
MLA Format Citations
MLA is the acronym for the Modern Language Association. MLA citation style is used in English and humanities. MLA in-text citations include the author's last name and the page number from which the information, paraphrase, or quotation was taken.
- The bones of 60 mammoths were excavated from the airport construction site in Mexico (Williams 17).
When the author's name is mentioned in the sentence, it will not be repeated in the in-text citation:
- As Williams explained, it came as a shock to the construction workers to see the bones (17).
When information is drawn from two different sources written by the same author, a shortened version of the title is added to the in-text citation after the author's name and before the page number. A comma is inserted before the title.
- The mammoths may have gotten stuck in a muddy lake (Williams, Discovery 41).
- Prehistoric animal remains had previously been located at the construction site of a beach-side resort (Williams, Prehistorical Animals of Mexico 8).
When the author is named earlier in the sentence, the author's name is omitted from the in-text citation, thus including only the shortened title and page number.
- Williams hypothesized that the mammoths may have gotten stuck in a muddy lake (Discovery 41).
For a source with two or three authors, both their last names are listed, with the word 'and' inserted before the last one:
- Archaeologists have made important discoveries in Central America over the last two decades (Martin and Bates 27).
- Martin and Bates predict that more discoveries will be made in Guatemala and Belize (34).
For a source with three or more authors, only the last name of the first author is listed, followed by 'et al.' This abbreviation means 'and others.'
- Humans created traps to catch mammoths 15,000 years ago (Smith et al. 51).
- Smith et al. found traps that were used to catch mammoths 15,000 years ago (51).
When a website or webpage has no author, the in-text citation includes the first item that appears in the Works Cited entry for the source, which will probably be the name of the webpage. A page number is not included ("Recent Discoveries").
APA Format Citations
APA is the acronym for the American Psychological Association. APA citations are used in psychology, nursing, education, and social sciences. Like MLA citations, APA citations include the author's last name. Unlike MLA citations, APA citations include the year of publication.
- The bird-like dinosaur had large eyes and excellent hearing, so scientists concluded that it could hunt at night (Robbins, 2021).
Like MLA citations, when the author's name is mentioned in the sentence, the name is not repeated in the in-text citation:
- As Robbins (2021) reported, the bird-like dinosaur had large eyes and excellent hearing so it could hunt at night.
When language from the source is quoted, a comma is inserted after the year, and the page number is inserted after the abbreviation 'p.' If multiple page numbers are cited, the abbreviation 'pp.' is used. Note that these abbreviations are not used in MLA style.
- The dinosaur had long legs and a small head and looked like "an unusual chicken" (Robbins, 2021, p. 5).
For a source with two authors, both their last names are listed, and the ampersand symbol is placed before the last one:
- The bones around the eye indicated that the dinosaur could see in the dark (Choiniere & Benson, 2021).
For a source with three or more authors, only the last name of the first author is listed, followed by the abbreviation 'et al.'
- Their discovery was contested by another research team working in Australia (Lopez et al., 2021).
When a website or webpage has no author, a short version of the title is placed in quotation marks and used in place of the author's last name ("Mammoth Bones," 2016).
Chicago Format Citations
The Chicago citation style that uses in-text citations is called the Chicago Author-Date style. This style is commonly used in the sciences. The in-text citation format is the same for books, articles, and electronic sources.
When an entire source is being referenced, the in-text citation includes the author's last name and the year of publication. In contrast to MLA style, the year is included in the in-text citation. In contrast to APA style, there is no comma between the last name and year.
- The newly discovered dinosaur was a large plant-eating sauropod (Stachel 2021).
Like MLA and APA citations, when the author's name is mentioned in the sentence, the name is not repeated in the in-text citation:
- As Stachel (2021) reported, the newly discovered dinosaur was a large plant-eating sauropod.
When information is drawn from a specific page or range of pages, the page number or range is included. After the year, a comma is inserted, followed by the page number(s) for the information being cited.
- The bones were identified by scientists as a new species of dinosaurs 17 years after a farmer found them (Stachel 2021, 5).
For a source with two or three authors, the last names of all of them are listed with the word 'and' inserted before the last one:
- Hocknull and Mackenzie (2021) discovered a new type of dinosaur in Australia.
- A new type of dinosaur was discovered in Australia (Hocknull and Mackenzie 2021).
- The discovery was contested by another research team working in Australia (Lopez, Johnson and Chen 2021).
For a source with four or more authors, only the last name of the first author is listed, followed by the abbreviation 'et al.':
- Their discovery was contested by another research team working in Australia (Lopez et al. 2021).
When a website or webpage has no author, the organization's name is used in the in-text citation instead of the author's last name (Google 2016). With Chicago Author-Date style guides, note that this style is different from than Chicago Notes-Bibliography style. Chicago Notes-Bibliography style is used in the humanities and uses footnotes or endnotes instead of in-text citations.
Importance of Using Citations
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Citations are essential when writing a paper for several reasons. First, they give credit to the other authors who created and shared the ideas or information used in the paper. Second, citations help a writer avoid plagiarism. To avoid plagiarism, a writer must also use quotation marks around language quoted from the source and make sufficient changes in the language and grammar when paraphrasing a source. Third, citations help readers conduct their research. Citations enable readers to revisit the sources of an author that was used to construct their interpretations and arguments while writing on a similar topic.
Lesson Summary
In-text citations are parenthetical references used in sentences in the body of a paper or essay to let the reader know the source of the information, opinion, or language used in the sentence. Inside parentheses, the author and the year of publication of the source are mentioned, sometimes along with the page number from where the information, opinion, or language was taken. Citations are required when incorporating facts and information obtained from another source, but they are not crucial when mentioning a well-known fact. Citations should be used when directly quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, or referencing someone else's work.
Several different systems are used to format citations. Common systems are MLA, APA, and Chicago style. MLA in-text citations are author-page citations, while APA and Chicago in-text citations are author-date citations.
Citation Style | In-text Citation for Source with 1 Author | In-text Citation for Source with Multiple Authors | End of Paper Citations |
---|---|---|---|
MLA | (Lopez 10) | 2 authors (Lopez and Johnson 10) 3 or more authors (Lopez et al. 10) |
Works Cited |
APA | (Lopez, 2011) For a quotation (Lopez, 2011, p. 10) |
2 authors (Lopez & Johnson, 2012) 3 or more authors (Lopez et al., 2013) |
References |
Chicago Author-Date | General reference to the source (Lopez 2011) Information from a specific page in the source (Lopez 2011, 10) |
2 authors (Lopez and Johnson 2012) 3 authors (Lopez, Johnson and Chen 2013) 4 or more authors (Lopez et al. 2014) |
Reference List |
In MLA style, when information is drawn from two different sources written by the same author, a shortened version of the title is used in the in-text citation. Citations are essential when writing a paper for several reasons. It enables readers to revisit the sources that the author used to construct their interpretations and arguments.
MLA Citations
MLA stands for the Modern Language Association. MLA citations use parenthetical citations with the author and page number. These short citations tell the reader which source in your bibliography to look up and where to look in the source. Here's an example:
- One historian praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (Churchill 41).
If you mention the author in the sentence, you can just give the page number:
- Churchill praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (41).
If your readers want to look up that quote, they can just go to your bibliography, look up the Churchill book, and find the quote for themselves.
If you have a source that doesn't have a single author, like a website, you can replace the author's name with any identifying phrase, like the title of the website. If you have a source without page numbers, like a painting, you can simply leave them out.
But, what if you have two books by Winston Churchill? This quote is from his book History of the English-Speaking Peoples, but maybe you are writing a whole paper on Winston Churchill, so you're also citing his book Marlborough: His Life and Times. No problem, just use a shortened version of each source title to tell the reader which book you mean:
- Winston Churchill praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (English-Speaking Peoples 41).
- He also says that None had his knowledge, and few his easy, suave, adaptable competence, or his calm, even temper (Marlborough 535).
The MLA publishes rules for citing just about any kind of source you can possibly imagine, including all the weird ones like patents, TV shows, people's blog posts, personal conversations, and advertisements. It's tedious to sift through all that and try to memorize it before you even need it. So, just remember that you can find all that information at the Purdue University Online Writing Lab, which explains all the weird source types and how to format them.
APA Citations
APA stands for the American Psychological Association. APA citations use parenthetical citations with the author and the date. Unlike MLA citations, APA citations have the date in the parenthetical, and they also use a comma and a 'p.' before a single page number and pp. before multiple page numbers. Here's an example:
- One historian praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (Churchill, 1957, p. 41).
Like MLA citations, if you mention the author in the sentence you can just give the page number, but you still have to put the date after the author's name:
- Churchill (1957) praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (p. 41).
If you're not citing any specific page of a work, you can simply name the source and the date:
- At least one History of the English-Speaking Peoples covers events on both sides of the Atlantic (Churchill, 1957).
Of course, there are plenty of things that you might need to cite besides journal articles. Luckily the Purdue Online Writing Lab also has an APA guide for you to look up anything you like.
Incorporating Quoted Text into Essays
In order to maintain a natural flow to the essay, it is critical to make sure there is a lead-in and/or a lead-out to the quoted text so that it moves along with logical consistency. For example, it is a good idea to let the reader know that a quote is coming up by using phrases such as ''In the following quote one may see...'' or ''To put the idea in context, consider the following quote by...'' as just two possible examples of lead-ins to a quote.
In addition, a lead-out sentence after the quote can also help tie it into the essay. One may want to use something like, ''The previous quote demonstrates the aforementioned idea of...'' or ''As Emerson states in the quote, one may see a correlation between....''
While this writing style may seem repetitive, it is better in an essay to make sure there is a signpost for the readers that alerts them to a quote because quotes can be disruptive to the overall structure and flow if readers are not given a gentle warning that a quote is approaching.
Citation Systems
For all the brave souls who watched this far, now you get the shortcut! There are several programs that will automatically create citations for you, so you don't have to worry about all the little details about what to italicize where or where to put your commas. Microsoft Word has a built-in citation manager where you can plug in information about your source, and Word will automatically generate references and a bibliography in either MLA or APA. Other bibliography generators include EndNote and Zotero. Use them! They make your life easier and help you avoid silly typos.
Lesson Summary
When you're writing a paper, you need to cite every idea that isn't your own and every fact that you didn't personally find out, unless it's common knowledge. Scholars want to squeeze citations into as small of a space as possible, so they've come up with some citation formats that everyone can agree on.
In MLA style, use parenthetical citations with the author and page number. In APA style, use author-date parenthetical citations with the page number. You can find complete formatting guidelines for both styles on the Purdue Online Writing Lab website or use an automatic citation generator to take the headache out of it.
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Citations
When you are writing, sometimes you want to use a fact that you didn't find out for yourself. For example, you might want to use the fact that the planet Earth is 238,855 miles from the moon, but you're not super-thrilled about the idea of building your own spaceship and flying up to check for yourself. That's where citations come in.
In academic writing, you can look up someone else's measurement of the distance between the earth and the moon, and then use it in your own work with a citation. A citation tells the reader where you got information or an idea from. It's a way to credit other people for putting in the hard work of actually flying to the moon to check so you don't have to. Here are some example sentences that could be in your paper:
- According to NASA, the earth is 238,855 miles from the moon (NASA Space Place).
- Experts in astronomy agree that the moon and the earth are ''really far apart'' (NASA Space Place).
You have to cite every fact in your paper that you found out from someone else, unless the fact is common knowledge. For example, you don't have to cite the fact that Washington, D.C., is the capital of the USA: everyone knows that. But, you do have to cite the fact that Congress first met in Washington, D.C., on November 17, 1800, because most people don't know that. When in doubt - cite. You will never get in trouble for citing something unnecessarily, but you can get in trouble for not citing when you should have.
Also, use citations any time you quote someone else's words or use someone else's ideas. Here are some more examples:
- Winston Churchill has a very high opinion of the Duke of Marlborough, referring to his ''genius…in the field and his sagacity in counsel'' (Churchill 38).
- Winston Churchill strongly approved of Queen Anne's decision to place the Duke of Marlborough in supreme command of her armies (38).
Academic books can have thousands of citations, so everyone wants to keep them short. So, we've come up with several ways to squeeze all the information you need into short, easy-to-read citations. In this lesson, you'll learn two major ways to cite sources: APA style and MLA style. It does feel really nitpicky at first, and it's kind of annoying to pay attention to, but it's important to give other people credit for their ideas.
In both MLA and APA styles, you'll have a bibliography at the end of your paper. The bibliography lists every single source you took facts or ideas from, with enough information that the reader can find the exact same source. Then, in your in-text citations, refer readers to particular works in the bibliography and tell them where to look within each work. For APA, you'd label this page 'References' but for MLA, you'd label this page 'Works Cited'.
MLA Citations
MLA stands for the Modern Language Association. MLA citations use parenthetical citations with the author and page number. These short citations tell the reader which source in your bibliography to look up and where to look in the source. Here's an example:
- One historian praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (Churchill 41).
If you mention the author in the sentence, you can just give the page number:
- Churchill praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (41).
If your readers want to look up that quote, they can just go to your bibliography, look up the Churchill book, and find the quote for themselves.
If you have a source that doesn't have a single author, like a website, you can replace the author's name with any identifying phrase, like the title of the website. If you have a source without page numbers, like a painting, you can simply leave them out.
But, what if you have two books by Winston Churchill? This quote is from his book History of the English-Speaking Peoples, but maybe you are writing a whole paper on Winston Churchill, so you're also citing his book Marlborough: His Life and Times. No problem, just use a shortened version of each source title to tell the reader which book you mean:
- Winston Churchill praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (English-Speaking Peoples 41).
- He also says that None had his knowledge, and few his easy, suave, adaptable competence, or his calm, even temper (Marlborough 535).
The MLA publishes rules for citing just about any kind of source you can possibly imagine, including all the weird ones like patents, TV shows, people's blog posts, personal conversations, and advertisements. It's tedious to sift through all that and try to memorize it before you even need it. So, just remember that you can find all that information at the Purdue University Online Writing Lab, which explains all the weird source types and how to format them.
APA Citations
APA stands for the American Psychological Association. APA citations use parenthetical citations with the author and the date. Unlike MLA citations, APA citations have the date in the parenthetical, and they also use a comma and a 'p.' before a single page number and pp. before multiple page numbers. Here's an example:
- One historian praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (Churchill, 1957, p. 41).
Like MLA citations, if you mention the author in the sentence you can just give the page number, but you still have to put the date after the author's name:
- Churchill (1957) praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (p. 41).
If you're not citing any specific page of a work, you can simply name the source and the date:
- At least one History of the English-Speaking Peoples covers events on both sides of the Atlantic (Churchill, 1957).
Of course, there are plenty of things that you might need to cite besides journal articles. Luckily the Purdue Online Writing Lab also has an APA guide for you to look up anything you like.
Incorporating Quoted Text into Essays
In order to maintain a natural flow to the essay, it is critical to make sure there is a lead-in and/or a lead-out to the quoted text so that it moves along with logical consistency. For example, it is a good idea to let the reader know that a quote is coming up by using phrases such as ''In the following quote one may see...'' or ''To put the idea in context, consider the following quote by...'' as just two possible examples of lead-ins to a quote.
In addition, a lead-out sentence after the quote can also help tie it into the essay. One may want to use something like, ''The previous quote demonstrates the aforementioned idea of...'' or ''As Emerson states in the quote, one may see a correlation between....''
While this writing style may seem repetitive, it is better in an essay to make sure there is a signpost for the readers that alerts them to a quote because quotes can be disruptive to the overall structure and flow if readers are not given a gentle warning that a quote is approaching.
Citation Systems
For all the brave souls who watched this far, now you get the shortcut! There are several programs that will automatically create citations for you, so you don't have to worry about all the little details about what to italicize where or where to put your commas. Microsoft Word has a built-in citation manager where you can plug in information about your source, and Word will automatically generate references and a bibliography in either MLA or APA. Other bibliography generators include EndNote and Zotero. Use them! They make your life easier and help you avoid silly typos.
Lesson Summary
When you're writing a paper, you need to cite every idea that isn't your own and every fact that you didn't personally find out, unless it's common knowledge. Scholars want to squeeze citations into as small of a space as possible, so they've come up with some citation formats that everyone can agree on.
In MLA style, use parenthetical citations with the author and page number. In APA style, use author-date parenthetical citations with the page number. You can find complete formatting guidelines for both styles on the Purdue Online Writing Lab website or use an automatic citation generator to take the headache out of it.
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Create your account
How do you write a citation?
- An in-text citation in MLA style is created by placing the author's last name and the page number in parentheses in the sentence (Lopez 10).
- An in-text citation in APA style is created by placing the author's last name and year of publication, separated by a comma in parentheses in the sentence (Lopez, 2011).
- An in-text citation in Chicago author-date style is created by placing the author's last name and year of publication with parentheses in the sentence without a comma (Lopez 2011).
How to create an in-text citation for a website?
When a website or webpage has an author, the in-text citation is the same as an in-text citation for a book or article, like in APA style, an in-text citation would be (Smith, 2020).
But, when citing a website or webpage with no author, the organization's name is used in the in-text citation in place of the author's last name (Google, 2016). For instance, in Chicago author-date style, the in-text citation would not include the comma (Google 2016).
How to cite in MLA format?
In-text citations in MLA format are author-page citations. The author's last name and the page number are placed in parentheses in the sentence (Lopez 10).
What is the difference between in-text citation and references?
In-text citations are much shorter than the full references that are included in a Works Cited page or reference list. These citations typically include the author's last name and either the page number or year of publication. Sometimes, all three pieces of information are included. References, however, include additional information such as the title and publisher.
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