PREVIOUS: Genre, Media, and Disciplinary Conventions

Introduction

Different disciplines also use different conventions of citation. MLA is common in the humanities, while APA is most often used in social sciences. One reason that APA is more important in the social sciences because the date when the article is very important to showing whether the research is current. In APA citations, the date is right there in the internal citation, whereas in MLA it isn’t. You may run into other citation conventions, too, such as CSE or Chicago Style. Don’t worry, you don’t have to memorize all the different styles. That’s why style guides are useful! We all have to look up the specifics.

Key Parts

What you do need to know is the key parts to any citation and how to identify them. The common parts to any citation are author’s name, title, publication information, year, and page numbers. If a citation is missing any of these, then there is probably something wrong. It could be that the sources is not a strong, credible source, or it could be that the information is just a little difficult to find. One of the most common sources you will use is an academic journal article. For this type of source, you’ll need to be careful to distinguish between the article title and the journal title. An academic journal is like a magazine, only more academic! So, the journal title is publication information. Journals typically have a volume and often an issue number. These will need to be included as well. If you found the article on the library databases, you’ll need the DOI number as well. Don’t just save that link because it might change. The DOI or digital object identifier is stable. Here’s another tip: Download the PDF version to make sure you have page numbers for your citation.

MLA

Below, you will find the MLA citation Practice Template. Items 1 through 9 in this text are interactive, which means that you can click on the slot and learn details about what information belongs in it. If your source has more than one “container,” you simply list the second container under “container 2” and repeat the process of describing that container. For example, if you are citing an article that you obtained on JSTOR, you would include details about the journal as “Container 1” and JSTOR as container 2. A few notes before you get started: This template lists the punctuation required for each element. When you have two elements in one slot, use a comma to separate the entries in the element. In previous versions of MLA format, we used place holders like “np” when the source didn’t list a page number or “nd” when we have no date of publication. Those place holders are no longer necessary. You can just leave the element blank. There are also some optional elements in citing sources that you would include between the title of source and the title of container or between container titles. This might include date of access for an online source without publication information. Or, “transcript,” if you’re using a written transcript of a video/audio source. Check out the MLA’s style website for more details. The main thing to remember is that your citation should help your reader get to the original source by providing all the relevant source information. One final thought: There are several online citation generators out there than can help you get started on a citation. However, it’s really important to check those against the official template; otherwise, your citation might be incomplete.

Practice Template

In-text citation in MLA format is intended to direct the reader in a very streamlined way to the Works Cited page. The first item in your parenthetical citation (or your signal phrase) should correspond to the first thing that appears (on the far left) of the Works Cited entry for the source.

So, if your source has an author named Charles Bazerman and the passage you’re citing is found on page 83 of Bazerman’s text, you would provide the following parenthetical citation:

(Bazerman 83).

You can also introduce the author name using a signal phrase in this way:

Bazerman says, “Almost every word and phrase we use we have heard or seen before” (83).

For a text without an author, list the first words of your citation. If the article title is “Voting Rights Activists Gather in Washington D.C.,” you would choose a shortened title for your in-text citation: (“Voting Rights” 2).

For a more in-depth look at in-text citation, go to here or visit the Purdue OWL.

APA

If you know the parts of a citation, then you shouldn’t have trouble switching from MLA to APA. APA uses the same parts but puts them in a different order and has some minor differences in style. APA is more common than MLA, especially in social sciences. One big difference with APA is that the year is foregrounded. Think about how important it is for research in the social sciences and sciences to be up to date. Researchers need to know when the information was studied so they can assess its current relevance. For this reason, your internal parenthetical citations in APA add the year. (Nackaski, 2017, p. 20). If you include the author in the sentence, then the year goes with the author’s name. The page number still goes at the end of the sentence, and don’t forget–the internal citation is a part of your sentence, so the period goes after the parentheses! Nackaski (2017) found that new college students often used citation styles they had already used in high school (p. 20). One of the conventions of writing in the social sciences is that sometimes it is important to synthesize a lot of different authors rather than directly quote from one source. This makes it more difficult to use page numbers, so sometimes APA does not require a page number for internal citations. If you are quoting or paraphrasing specific information from a source, then still use a page number. But if you are summarizing, you can just use the author’s name and year. Here’s an example of what it might look like to give a brief overview of different research in APA and still use internal citations: Multiple scholars (Anson et al., 2010; Broad, 2003; Turley & Gallagher, 2008; Wilson, 2006) have expressed concern that grading writing with rubrics limits the way students can interpret the assignment. Wait a minute! Did you notice I put Anson et al.? What does that mean? It means “and others.” If your sources have more that three authors, which is also more common in social science writing, then you put the first author’s name and et al. in your citation, after the first time you use that source. Don’t change who the first author is–you don’t need to put them in alphabetical order within the same source–that person likely did the most work on the study and is thus listed first. Notice how for just two authors, I used the “&” sign and included both names. In APA, your final page of sources is called a Reference List rather than a Works Cited page. It is still listed in alphabetical order by the first author’s name, but you’ll notice a few subtle differences. First, the year is more prominent at the beginning of the citation. Also, you’ll notice the first name of the author is not spelled out. There are also small differences like capitalization and punctuation. Here are a few examples:

Examples

Journal Article with three authors

Craig, W., Pepler, D., & Blais, J. (2007). Responding to bullying what works? School Psychology International, 28(4), 465–477.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034307084136

Book with one author

Wilson, M. (2006). Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Other Citation Styles

While in college, most students will use either MLA or APA style guides; however, they should also be aware that many guides exist depending on the discipline. The most common of these is the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) followed by the Council of Science Editors (CSE). If your instructor doesn’t specify a style be sure to ask. Most style guides can be found online. The important thing to remember is that you don’t have to memorize a style guide, as long as you know the source you can look up how to do a correct citation. Every few years organizations will update how they want citations to appear, so be leery of using citation machines to do the work for you, since they can be very slow to make the necessary changes. Librarians can also help you navigate unfamiliar citation styles.

A word on citation generators….

You may be wondering why we are spending all this time on citations when there are citation generators out there that make them for you. Good question! Citation generators are great tools. However, in order to plug in the information to generate a citation, you often need to know what information you need. Secondly, citation generators just aren’t as smart you are. They frequently make mistakes in citations. So, part of your proofreading process is to go over the details and recognize when a citation generator has done something wrong. For example, when using Zotero, you will have to change the capitalization to meet APA rules after generating a citation; often, each citation generator has its own imperfections that you will need to account for.

Activity

[h5p id=”34″] Citation Practice Worksheet Answer Key

Summary

Remember that it is absolutely crucial that you cite your sources to avoid plagiarism. However, the style you use might vary depending on your discipline and audience. Consult style guides for specifics whenever possible.

NEXT: Appendices