Using Citations

Why are citations important?

  • Citations give your reader the information needed if he/she wants to look at one of your sources.
  • Citations give you credibility. By showing where you got your information you are telling the readers that you’ve done research and they can look it up for themselves to check if you’re right.

Why are there so many citation styles?

  • Different disciplines (e.g. Humanities vs. Social Sciences) see different things as most important in citations.
  • The different citation styles reveal what each discipline wants to emphasize.

Some Different Citation Styles

Here are some of the most common citation styles.

MLA (Modern Language Association) Citations

  • MLA citations are used primarily by the humanities (e.g. English, Literature)
  • The humanities “depend on shared background knowledge” and so citing particular people who are viewed as authorities is important.
  • Quotations are used frequently.
  • Since each individual authority and what he/she said is most important, the MLA works cited page lists the author’s name and the title of what he/she has written first. This is also why MLA in-text citations identify the author’s name and the page number where what he/she said can be found.

An MLA in-text citation might look like this:

Boys use such language when “they feel the need to impress, or when they are in situations where their status is in question” (Tannen 85).

Its works cited page would look like this:

Tannen, Deborah, The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue.New York: Random House, 1998.

Chicago Manual of Style

  • Chicago style is another citation style used by some disciplines in the humanities (e.g. History).
  • The major difference between Chicago style and MLA is that Chicago uses footnotes or endnotes instead of in-text citations, (like this6). The Chicago style bibliography is very similar to the MLA works cited page.

APA (American Psychological Association) Citations

  • APA citations are used primarily by the social sciences (e.g. psychology, education, business, political science).
  • The social sciences see the date of publication as most important for sources. Less emphasis is placed on the person who wrote it. These citations are often clustered in the introduction and conclusion.
  • Direct quotations are less frequent than with the humanities.
  • Since the date of publication is most important for social sciences, it is placed immediately after the author’s name on the references page. Since the name of the author is of less importance, only their last name and first initials are cited. This emphasis is also why in-text APA citations include the date.

An APA in-text citation might look like this:

Parents dress their infants in gender-specific colors and also expect different behavior from boys and girls (Witt, 1997).

Its references page would look like this:

Witt, S.D. (1997). Parental influence on children’s socialization to gender roles. Adolescence, 32, 47-63.

Citations in the Sciences

  • The sciences have many different styles of citations, which often have some similarities to APA citations. Documentation styles can vary greatly even within each discipline.
  • Like APA, there is more emphasis on the date of publication and a text as a whole, rather than emphasis on the author and individual ideas within a text.
  • Citations are often clustered together and multiple references are often given for one citation, giving less distinction between texts.

Sources:

Dowdey, Diane. “Citation and Documentation Across the Curriculum.” Constructing Rhetorical Education. Ed. Marie Secor and

David Charney. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1992.

Lester, James D., and James D. Lester, Jr. Writing Research Papers: A Complete Guide. 13th ed.New York: Longman, 2010.