Welcome to Lesson 7!
This lesson has multiple pages. It'll probably take you about 45 to 90 minutes to read through this lesson, but how long it'll take really depends on how fast you read and how much of the material is new to you. To get to the next lesson, use the navigational links in the vertical black bar on the left, or use the link at the bottom of each page. If you are taking the tests associated with the lessons in this tutorial, you'll need to navigate to the page that has LINKS TO ALL TESTS.
And now, the author would like to tell you about four things she is really eager for you to take away from this lesson:
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When authors write, they refer to other sources because it strengthens their writing by helping them build a case or giving their writing context.
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When authors refer to other sources, they must cite them, otherwise they are guilty of plagiarism.
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There are four ways authors incorporate sources into their writing: direct quotes, paraphrasing, summarizing, and referring.
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The elements and formatting of citations are dictated by style guides.
Now, let's get started!
In Lesson 6 you learned how to find information sources, but in order to use them in your writing, you'll need to know when, why, and how to cite them. While citing is extremely important, it is - admittedly - not fascinating and thrilling to learn about. (Unlike the other content in this tutorial.) But you must soldier on, we are all in this together.
What is CITING and what are CITATIONS?
When you write, sometimes you need to consult and use content from outside sources, in which case you must cite those sources. Specifically, you must cite any time you use ideas, text, information, images, media, etc. from outside sources such as books, journal articles, etc.
To cite means to provide your readers with a citation showing that you used information from an outside source.
A citation is an abbreviated way to refer to a source; it includes just enough information so that others could track down the source.
Below is an image of a journal article citation with all the parts of the citation identified.
WHERE should you cite? In two places!
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You must provide an abbreviated citation, called an in-text citation, within your text at any spot where you are conveying information that you took from an outside source.
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You must provide a full citation at the end of your text in the references section OR in footnotes at the bottom of any page that contains an in-text citation. The exact place you put your full citations (at the end of your text or in footnotes) depends on the citation style guide you are using.
Citation style guides
The way you're in-text citations will look, and the way your reference list or footnotes will look, will depend on the citation style guide you are using. You may already be familiar with one or more citation style guides such as MLA, APA, Chicago-style, etc. You'll learn more about citation style guides later in this lesson.
More about in-text citations
In-text citations act as tags to show your reader the exact spot in your writing where you are conveying information that came from an outside source. For example, take a look at the highlighted sentence from the article excerpt shown to the right, which reads:
"Old-growth ponderosa pine forest have become rare (Harrington and Sackett 1992, Noss et al. 1995) and meadows have shrunk due to tree encroachment (Swetnam et al. 1999)."
Notice that there are three in-text citations:
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Harrington and Sackett 1992
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Noss et al. 1995
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Swetnam et al. 1999
What do those in-text citation tell you, the reader? Well, they show you that the authors learned about the rarity of old-growth ponderosa pine forests from two publications, one by the authors Harrington and Sackett, but also from a publication by Noss et al. Furthermore, the authors learned about shrinking meadows from a publication by Swetnam et al. Notice how the publication dates for those publications are also provided in the in-text citation.
Take a look again at those in-text citations for Noss et al. and Swetnam et al. Are you wondering what et al. means? It's Latin for and others.
What it means is that there were several more authors in addition to Noss, and in addition to Swetnam, but not all of them are listed because it would make the in-text citation too long and cluttered.
IMPORTANT!!! Keep in mind that not all in-text citations look like the ones you've just seen, with the last name of the author followed by a date. How they look will depend on the citation style guide you are using. For example, some citation style-guides stipulate that your number your in-text citations. Below you see an excerpt from the article entitled The Health Dimensions of Urban Food Systems showing in-text citations that are numbered.
Finish off your text with a list of references.
For all the in-text citations you use throughout your text, you'll need to list corresponding full citations at the end of your text, in a list of references. In fact, this list is entitled References because it lists all the sources you referred to throughout your text.
Remember that excerpt you looked at before that had three in-text citations?
"Old-growth ponderosa pine forest have become rare (Harrington and Sackett 1992, Noss et al. 1995) and meadows have shrunk due to tree encroachment (Swetnam et al. 1999). "
Below you see how the corresponding full citations look.
And below, you can see how full-citations look in the references section when you've numbered your in-text citations.
Something else to note is that sometimes the references list has a slightly different name. For example, it might be called:
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Works Cited
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Cited Works
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Literature Cited
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Cited Literature
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Cited References
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References Cited
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Bibliography
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End Notes
Or use footnotes instead of a reference list.
Some citation style-guides require you to use footnotes INSTEAD of listing references at the end of your text. For example, take a look at the excerpt shown below from this article:
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Osmond, G. (2011). The Surfing Tommy Tanna: Performing Race at the Australian Beach. The Journal of Pacific History, 46(2), 177-195.
Note that you'd put corresponding footnotes on any page of text that had in-text citations.
