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North Hagerstown High LibGuide

Overview

Why we do it: It's important to cite sources you used in your research for several reasons:

  • To show your reader you've done proper research by listing sources you used to get your information
  • To be a responsible scholar by giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas
  • To avoid plagiarism by quoting words and ideas used by other authors
  • To allow your reader to track down the sources you used by citing them accurately in your paper by way of footnotes, a bibliography or reference list

What is a Direct Quotation?

A direct quotation is when you take another person’s words and place them in your own document.  These must always be placed inside quotation marks and given appropriate attribution (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc).

When Should I Quote?

Not all evidence needs to be presented in the form of direct quotation. Often, you can convey information more efficiently and integrate it more smoothly into your own writing by paraphrasing, rather than using direct quotation. Only use a direct quotation when one of these statements is true:

  • The passage is particularly effective, memorable, or well written.
  • Your analysis will focus on specific words or phrases in the passage.
  • You want to emphasize the source’s opinion, especially if the passage clarifies a difficult or contested claim.
  • You are quoting an authority who will lend weight to your argument.

About Citations: Citing a source means that you show, within the body of your text, that you took words, ideas, figures, images, etc. from another place.

Citations are a short way to uniquely identify a published work (e.g. book, article, chapter, website). They are found in bibliographies and reference lists and are also collected in article and book databases.

Citations consist of standard elements and contain all the information necessary to identify and track down publications, including:



Citations may look different, depending on what is being cited and which style was used to create them. Choose an appropriate style guide for your needs. Here is an example of an article citation using four different citation styles. Notice the common elements mentioned above:

Author - R. Langer

Article Title - New Methods of Drug Delivery

Source Title - Science

Volume and issue - Vol 249, issue 4976

Publication Date - 1990

Page numbers - 1527-1533
 

American Psychological Association  (APA) style:

Langer, R. (1990). New methods of drug delivery. Science, 249(4976), 1527-1533.

Modern Language Association (MLA) style:

Langer, R. "New Methods of Drug Delivery." Science 249.4976 (1990): 1527-33.

Resources to help with citations:

Works Cited

These elements are needed to create bibliographic citations for your "Works Cited" page(s). Your "Works Cited" is the list of sources cited in the text of your research paper and is included at the end of your research paper.