Library Tutorials: Cite Sources

To "cite a source" is to tell a reader of your paper where you got a specific quote, fact, graphic, or idea from. This allows the reader to check up on your information and make sure you have:

• drawn on authoritative sources
• used them fairly
• copied from them accurately
• included all important details
• interpreted them correctly

Each style of citation has its own specific rules, such as how to write the author's name, where to place a comma or period, and which words to capitalize. But the basic building blocks of the citation are the same for all:

• title
• author(s) 
• date
• publisher (for books)
• source (name of journal an article came from)
• volume & issue
• web address (for web sources) 

MLA and APA are the names of two different citation systems.  There are many others (AP, Chicago/Turabian, legal) but these are the two most used at Lake Land.  

APA is from the American Psychological Association and used mostly in the social sciences

MLA is from the Modern Language Association and used mostly in the humanities

For more details on the differences between MLA and APA, click here.

There are two parts to a citation in a paper: the Works Cited page (aka References or Bibliography) and the in-text citation. The in-text citation is a reference you put in the body of your paper that points to the full citation in your works cited page.

Footnotes & Endnotes

Footnotes are references that are listed at the bottom of every page. With footnotes, whenever a writer needs to cite a source, they will put a little number at the end of the sentence.¹ Then the reader will go to the bottom of the page and read the reference that corresponds to that number. Not long ago, scholars employed footnotes all the time, but they are becoming less and less common. Neither APA nor MLA uses footnotes, but you might encounter them in academic books and articles

Endnotes are just like footnotes, only they're listed at the end of the chapter (or the book) instead of at the bottom of the page.

¹ This is a footnote.

Parenthetical References

APA and MLA use parenthetical references instead of footnotes. This just means you put a short reference in your paper that points to the longer citation in your bibliography.

APA In-Text Documentation

How recent a piece of research is matters more in the social sciences than it does in the humanities, so APA in-text references will always list the date:

First generation gun owners were more likely to shoot off their own foot (Smith & Wesson, 2002).

Here are three ways to create an in-text citation in APA:

1. Just the date. If you refer to the name of your source within your sentence, you just put the date in parentheses: Brown (1970) describes a chilling meeting between warriors and soldiers as the Indians explained why they needed to hunt buffalo in the Yellowstone country.
2. The name and date: The freezing temperature was not the only reason for the meeting between the warriors and the soldiers to be chilling as the Indians explained why they needed to hunt buffalo (Brown, 1970).
3. Add the page number if it's a direct quote, you should put the page numbers in your in-text citation: Brown (1970) states, "There were no preliminary speeches, no friendly smokes of the pipe" (p. 304). OR: "There were no preliminary speeches, no friendly smokes of the pipe" (Brown, 1970, p. 304).

The examples above refer to a citation on the references page of a book titled "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" written in 1970 by Dee Brown.

MLA In-Text Documentation

Research in the humanities tends to rely on books more than journals, so in MLA you put the page number in your in-text citation rather than the date:

Second generation gun owners were more likely to shoot the dog (Smith & Wesson 254).

Dates, on the other hand, are not provided in MLA.  Here are three ways to do an MLA in-text citation:

1. Just the page number:  Cox recognizes that dentists must continue to study elderly orofacial pain to help change the stigma of visits being associated with pain rather than pain relief (248).
2. The name and page number: Dentists must continue to study elderly orofacial pain to help change the stigma of visits being associated with pain rather than pain relief (Cox 248).
3. Direct Quote : Cox states, "When dentists better understand, assess, and treat pain in the elderly, dentistry will become more distantly associated with pain, and more closely associated with pain relief" (248).

Note that MLA doesn't use as much punctuation as APA. Where APA would say (Cox, 2002, p. 248), MLA just lists (Cox 248), with no commas or abbreviations.

Each in-text citation refers to a list at the end of your paper.  In MLA, this is called the Works Cited page.  In APA, it's called References.

Each style has its own specific rules on how authors, titles, dates, and specific types of sources should be represented. Please see the Library's Citing Sources Libguide: http://lakeland.libguides.com/citing.