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Citations & Creating a Works Cited Section


Why do we cite work?

The basic logic behind citation is to:

  • credit others for their work (thereby avoiding plagiarism)
  • provide information for other scholars to validate your thesis and/or begin their own research on a topic you presented.

 What needs to be cited?

Any work or ideas that are not your own should be cited. This means that you should cite your work if you …

  • copy a passage from another work
  • reword a passage from another work
  • got your idea from another source

What information is included in a citation?

The exact type of information changes depending on the work you are citing (such as a book, film, article, song, lecture, e-mail, website etc.) Your goal is to offer enough information so your reader can find the extact resources you used in your paper. For specific examples, go to our library media center's citation guide: http://www.londonderry.org/lhs/lmc/citation_guide.cfm 

  

 Here’s what citations look like at the end of your paper when they appear in the works cited section:

  Works Cited

 

DeMott, Robert. Introduction. The Grapes of Wrath. By John Steinbeck.

            New York: Penguin, 1992.

 

 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "Introduction to Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie -."   

          Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. Web. 24 Mar. 2010.

          <http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16608>.

 

 ______________________. "Paul Revere's Ride -." Poets.org - Poetry, Poems,

          Bios & More. Web. 24 Mar. 2010.

          <http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15640>.

 

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. 1939. New York: Penguin, 1992.

 

Why does the third citation (above) have a line where an author's name should be? When citing more than one work by the same author, you replace the author's name with a line. When you make a parenthetical citation for this, you use the next item in the citation. In the example above it would be: ("Paul Revere's Ride").

 

What does a citation look like when I'm using a quote/paraphrase from in my paper?

The Grapes of Wrath depicts the true experiences of the victims of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl by revealing the cruel realities of the migrant camps in California. Unless a family was fortunate enough to secure a spot in a government run camp, they were forced to live in jungle camps also known as migrant camps. The living structures in these camps are described in the following passage: “The south wall was made of three sheets of rusty corrugated iron, the east wall a square of moldy carpet tacked between two boards, the north wall a strip of roofing paper and a strip of tattered canvas…” (Steinbeck). These living conditions, most often associated with the third world, are (paragraph continues).

 

Notice that he name/term identified in the parentheses above corresponds with the first name/term as it appears in the works cited entry at the end of the paper.

 

How do you cite poetry in the body of a paper? See this link.

 

How do you cite a something that will take up more than three lines in your paper?  See this link to learn  how not to use block quotations and how to use block quotations.

 

Here are some links to guide you to even more detailed information regarding citations:

Londonderry High School's Library Media Center - click on "Citation Guide"

NoodleTools- NoodleBib  - You'll need to get your user name and password from the LMC.  

Here are some links to help you avoid plagiarism:

OWL Materials: Avoiding Plagiarism- Online Writing Lab at Purdue University 

 Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Avoid It - Writing Tutorial Services at Indiana University

 

Worried about Turn-It-In? Don't forget, you will have the opportunity to revise your traditional research paper.  As long as you have made every effort to indicate the source(s) of your ideas, quotes (passages), inspiration, influence and paraphrases, you will be fine. Turn-It-In will just indicate where information should be cited. As long as you have made a good faith effort to do so, you will be fine.