Skip to Main Content

Draft 2 - ILI Digital Credentialing: Cite Sources

Citing Sources

Information has value

How do you increase your credibility as a creator? How can you help the people who read or view your intellectual property fully understand how it is situated in the scholarly conversation? How can you ensure your research behavior is thoroughly ethical. Watch this brief video on the value of information.

The importance of citing

What is citation? Citation is how you tell someone viewing your work that parts of it (ideas, words, visualizations, etc) came from other sources—and how they can find these other sources themselves.

What is plagiarism? Plagiarism is taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

Why is citation important? The most common answer to this question is: if you use someone else's work, it is the right thing to do to give them credit. Otherwise, you are stealing their efforts as if they were your own and that is plagiarism, a serious academic offense. But there are more reasons than just that to properly cite:

  • Citation allows people to distinguish your ideas from others' ideas, so you get credit for your work.
  • If you cite evidence from reliable, expert sources to support your assertions or show the depth of your research into the scholarly conversation on your topic, you have more credibility.
  • The foundation of scientific/academic inquiry is that results can be replicated. When you cite the sources you use, other scholars can find those sources, confirm you have interpreted them accurately and learn from them too, perhaps even finding some other aspect of the scholarly conversation to engage with.
  • To protect you from legal or academic consequences.

Centre (like all colleges and work places) has an Academic Integrity policy all members of the Centre community are expected to follow. In the next sections of this guide, we will explore the concepts of plagiarism, fair use and citation more thoroughly.

Why are there so many citation styles and which do I use?

There are multiple citation styles because, historically, each area of scholarship (ex. arts and literature, sciences, history etc) published in their own set of journals and those journals created their own citation rules. The rules tend to reflect aspects of the citation that the discipline values. For example, compare these two citations:

Literature article/ MLA style
Jones, Joseph R. "Notes on the Diffusion and Influence of Avellaneda's" Quixote"." Hispania (1973): 229-237.
Psychology article / APA style
Wang, H., Li, T., Barbarino. (2020). Dementia care during COVID-19. The Lancet, 395(10231), 1190-1191.

All citation styles highly value the name of the author, so you will always find that information first in each style. But, look at the placement of the year of publication in these two citation styles. In literature studies, an article published in 1973, as the example was, might be as important as a more current one. A newer and older article could both contain equally valid interpretations of a source. The date of publication isn't that important. so it is placed near the end of the citation. In sciences, like for the treatment of dementia patients in the example, more current information is almost always more highly valued. Therefore, the APA style places the date of publication immediately after the author, even before the title of the article.

How do you know which style to use? When publishing in a journal, the journal's style guidelines will specify the citation style to use. In an academic class, your professor will almost always specify the style they prefer. If they don't have a preference, here is a general guideline:

Arts and humanities MLA style (especially in literature) / Chicago style
Social sciences Chicago style
Sciences APA (Chemistry: ACS) style

If you publish in a journal or with a book publisher, they will tell you which style is required.

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is when someone takes another person's work and passes it off as their own. Some examples of plagiarism include:

  • Using someone else's words-verbatim-without citation
  • Summarizing someone else's words without citation
  • Re-writing someone else's words using your own without citation
  • Translating someone else's words into another language and using them without citation
  • Turing all or portions of your own work in to more than than one source/for more than one class (self plagiarism)
  • Using an image, painting, picture of a sculpture or other visual art, photograph, video, graphic, chart, or table someone else created without citation. (Note: Images you insert into a Power Point or conference poster, even if only for aesthetic purposes, must be cited)
  • Using sound (music, beats, vocals, spoken word, audio tracks from any source) that someone else created without citation. (Note: Audio you insert into a Power Point presentation, even just to create a mood, must be cited)
  • Using data or statistics that someone else created without citation
  • Using facts, figures or ideas that are not common knowledge without citation

When in doubt, include a citation!

How to avoid plagiarism

Most scholars have no intention of plagiarizing someone else's work. But, when you refer to dozens of articles, webpages, newspapers and other sources when exploring and researching a topic, by the end of that research, it's very easy to confuse which ideas were originally yours and where ideas or even quotations came from. Therefore, it is extremely important to have a strategy to avoid plagiarism in place at the beginning of each research project. Here is one strategy:

Step 1: When you are exploring a topic and reading lots of sources, you never know if you might use them your paper or presentation later, so be safe and always record the following information for everything you read, to make citing it easier:

You will always need: For books you will also need: For articles, you will also need:
Author(s) name(s) Publisher (ex. McGraw Hill) Journal title
Title Place of publication (ex. Chicago)

Journal volume and issue

(there is not always an issue number)
Editors (if any) Year of publication Date (often month and year)
Translators (if any) URL, if accessed online DOI or URL, if access online

Step 2: Briefly note what summarized or paraphrased idea, quote, figure, image, chart, table etc, you got from this source.

Step 3: As you are writing your paper or presentation, refer to these notes and, when you begin writing about a certain idea, cite all the sources that contributed to your understanding of that idea appropriately. When you cite, be sure to add in-text AND bibliographic entries at the end of the page. You want to make sure your reader can identify another author’s source and find your article later.

Citing can also be a time consuming process, so be sure to leave enough time so you are not writing your citations at 3 AM. Planning early can alleviate the stress of citing sources and making mistakes.

Librarian Tip: Cite as you write your paper! If you don't want to break your train of thought, use the comment feature on Word or Google Docs etc. to quickly keep track of which ideas you need to cite and avoid the last minute crunch/accidental plagiarism.

How to create a citation

Creating citations is, honestly, quite complex. For each citation style, there is a different "formula" to follow for each type of source you might need to cite. Books, edited books, translated books, journal articles, works with more than one author, websites, tweets - they all have a slightly different formula to follow. There is too much to know about creating a citation to put it all on one page. The library offers the following resources to help you create citations:

Style Library page with basic examples Online style guide
APA APA basic samples Full online style guide
MLA MLA basic samples Full online style guide
Chicago Chicago basic samples Full online style guide
ACS ACS basic samples Full online style guide
CSE CSE basic samples

Full online style guide not available

Print version on reserve - ask at circulation desk

Librarian Tip!: Cite as you go or, at least, start your citations early. That way, if you need to find information you're missing or if you want a librarian, professor or the Writing Center to check your citations, you'll (and they'll) have time.

General tips to be aware of when creating citations

1. All citation styles require you to create both in-text and end-of-text citations. In-text citations may be parenthetical or they may be footnotes. Parenthetical citations usually include the author name and date of publication. Footnotes often include the full citation. Both types of in-text citations are placed immediately after the quote, summary, paraphrase where you borrowed an idea from another author. The end-of-text entry is always the full citation. It comes at the end of the paper and may be called "Bibliography," "Works Cited" or some other term, depending on the citation style.

2. Everything is important in a citation! To create one properly, you must be very detail-orientated:

  • Be aware of punctuation. When using a sample citation in a guide to create your own, distinguish between commas, periods, colons, semicolons and all other punctuation and make sure you are using the correct punctuation in all places;
  • Be aware of capitalization. Some styles capitalize all letters in a title or subtitle and some only capitalize the first letter, for example. No style capitalizes all the letters in any word.
  • Be aware that the number of authors affects how a citation is written. For example, some styles use the term "et. al" if there are more than a certain number of authors;
  • Don't forget editors, translators and other contributors beyond the author. Most styles have a way to give these people credit too, so look for those examples in the style guide;
  • Be aware of the type of material you are citing. For example: a chapter in a book has a different citation format than a whole book; a conference proceeding has a different citation format than a journal article;
  • If your source was online, you must include a URL or DOI. When available, the DOI is preferred. Here is more information about finding an article DOI. If you use a URL, you should try to avoid providing URLs behind a paywall. If your URL is to one of Centre's databases, be sure to use the permalink or persistent link. (Tobe sure you've done this correctly, click the link yourself and make sure it goes to the article);
  • If your article came from a database, for many styles, you must include the name of that database in your citation. EBSCOHost is not a database (this is the database name often provided by citation generators, but they are making a mistake when providing it. This is one of the most common ways students make mistakes in citations at Centre). If in doubt about the database name, ask a librarian for help;
  • Be aware that the bibliography/works cited page requires specific margin sizes and indentations in each style;
  • Be aware that if a publication doesn't have certain information (ex. an online journal that doesn't have page numbers), you don't just make that information up (ex. by counting the pages in the article). You leave it out of the citation.

3. Citation styles govern more than just the format of the citation. They also may dictate how the cover page of the paper should be formatted (if they require a cover page) and other aspects of paper formatting. Ask your professor if they expect you to comply with these guidelines as well.

Tools to help you generate citations

A variety of citation generators are available to help you create citations, including:

1. Purdue Owl has a tool to help you create citations for APA or MLA or Chicago style.

2. Most databases and Google Scholar have a citation link or button in the toolbar

3. Word and Google Docs have citation generators.

Librarian Tip!: No citation generator is perfect. All of them make well known mistakes (incorrect capitalization, omitting the DOI/URL, and mistaking the database name are the most common). Citation generators are a great place to start. They help you get most of the required information in place so you don't have to type it by hand. But: always check every citation you create using a citation generator. Check the punctuation, capitalization and database names, in particular. Watch this video for more information about proof reading a citation from a citation generator.

Demonstrate your research skills

Earn the Ethical Scholar - Citation Credential

We have discussed the requirements to properly cite your sources for your research. Demonstrate you can meet these requirement by submitting the Works Cited or Bibliography page and at least one content page of the associated academic paper (to show in-text citations) using the link provided below.

What is the difference between a citation manager and a citation generator?

A citation generator allows you to pick a citation style and then enter information to get a (mostly) properly formatted citation in return. Citation managers, like Zotero, do much more. Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a tool that helps you to collect and store sources, manage collaboration with other scholars, and cite your references. Using Zotero, which was built and is supported by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, you can:

  • store the PDFs or links of online articles that you download online
  • enter notes about what you found useful and attach them to the PDFs
  • organize sources into collections (folders) for different projects
  • create a shared folder to collaborate with other scholars
  • create citations based on the style you choose.

Zotero automatically updates itself when new citation style updates are released, so you will always be up-to-date.

Why use Zotero?

Zotero performs all the tasks that it would take many other tools to perform, all in one easy to use package. Sure, you could download all your sources and save them in OneDrive or your Google Drive. And you could use a Word or Google doc to keep notes, somehow associating each note with its source. And you could use another tool to generate citations. But Zotero does all that with one tool that integrates with Word and your browser to make it easier.

Librarian Tip: We highly recommend using Zotero. Nothing else to say. It's awesome!

How do I get Zotero?

Here is all the information you'll need to install the Zotero desktop app and browser/Word plugins.

Here is all the information for the Zotero mobile app.

Copyright

"Copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship as soon as an author fixes the work in a tangible form of expression. In copyright law, there are a lot of different types of works, including paintings, photographs, illustrations, musical compositions, sound recordings, computer programs, books, poems, blog posts, movies, architectural works, plays, and so much more!" - U.S. Copyright Office

Creative Commons

"Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, 'What can I do with this work?'" - Creative Commons

Fair Use

"Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use." - U.S. Copyright Office

Educational Use

Fair Use Checklist

"Fair Use" varies from situation to situation.  There is no prescriptive answer as to what constitutes fair use.  There are four tenets to consider when applying the "Fair Use" clause of the U.S. Copyright Law:

  1. Purpose and character of the use.  Is the use educational?
  2. Nature of the work.  Is the work highly factual (for example, a recipe or definition) or creative (novel, textbook, film, poem, etc.) in nature?  The more creative a work is, the more likely this particular factor will weigh heavier in your analysis.
  3. Amount of the work used.  The guideline used by the library is 10% of the work, but in fact there is not an amount assigned in the written letter of the Copyright Law.  If a very small portion used consists of the "heart" of the work, this would weigh heavier in the analysis.
  4. Market effect of the use.  Will your copy affect the sale or market of the work? 

These tenets were not meant to be considered singly, but should be analyzed together.  The clause does not prescribe how much "weight" each factor is accorded.  Historically, the courts have placed the most value on the "market effect" of the use, while the "nature" clause has usually been considered as a lesser factor.


For help in determining a fair use evaluation, the ALA Fair Use Evaluator, developed by Michael Brewer is a good resource.

Educational Use Guidelines

Under the "fair use" provision of U.S. Copyright Law, a copy may be made of an author's work without asking permission.  The suggestions made below are based on fair use guidelines, but please be aware that courts are not bound by these guidelines and the Copyright Act does not contain these prescriptions.  These examples merely provide a "safe harbor" for use.  Be sure to use the Fair Use Evaluator to conduct your own fair use analysis.

Print Materials:

  • A single chapter from a book or 10% of the work, whichever is less.
  • A single article from a journal or newspaper.
  • A short story, essay or poem from an individual work
  • A single chart, diagram, graph, drawing, cartoon, or picture from a book, journal, magazine or newspaper.

Classroom distribution of copies:

  • Copies should not substitute for the purchase of books, journals, etc.
  • Always provide a copyright notice on the first page of the copied material.  At the very least, the notice should state:  "Notice: This material is subject to the copyright law of the United States."
  • Provide only one copy per student.
  • Copying the work for subsequent semesters requires permission from the publisher.

Using Material found on the Internet:

  • Always credit the source
  • If you are using information on your personal web page, ask permission or simply provide a link to the site.
  • If you receive permission to use the material, keep a copy.

Using Multimedia:

Multimedia works are created by combining copyrighted works such as movies, music, sounds, graphics and text.  It is recommended that only small portions of the works are used.

  • Movies: Up to 10% or three minutes, whichever is less.
  • Text: Up to 10% or 1,000 words, whichever is less.  (The limits on poetry are understandably more restrictive).
  • Music: Up to 10% of an individual copyrighted musical composition.  10% of a copyrighted musical composition on a sound recording.  However, no more than 30 seconds may be used without gaining permission from the copyright owner and/or publisher.
  • Photos and Illustrations: Based on the CONFU guidelines, "a photograph or illustration may be used in its entirety, but no more than five images by one artist or photographer may be incorporated into any one multimedia program.  From a published collective work, not more than 10% or 15 of the images, whichever is less, may be used.

Conference on Fair Use Guidelines for Multimedia

The Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) attempted to establish guidelines to clarify the application of fair use of copyrighted works in the digital educational environment. These guidelines were never formally adopted.

While only the court can authoritatively determine fair use, many educators use these guidelines as a starting place because the guidelines represent the CONFU participants' consensus of conditions under which fair use should generally apply. However, the guidelines have no force of law behind them.

CONFU guidelines allow you to use small portions of multimedia works without obtaining copyright permissions.          

         Following CONFU guidelines you may:

  • Use portions of copyrighted works when creating multimedia projects for educational or instructional purposes.
  • Students may use small portions of copyrighted materials for a class project.
  • Students may display their own projects, use them in e-portfolios, use them in a job interview, or as part of an admissions application for college.
  • Faculty may use projects for teaching, distance education, remote instruction, conference presentations, or activities related to teaching and professional development.
  • Attribute your original source (cite the source!) of all copyrighted material you use.
  • Place a copyright notice on the opening screen of multimedia projects and any accompanying printed materials that states:  "Certain materials in this multimedia presentation are included under the fair use exemption of the U.S. Copyright Law and are restricted from further use."
  • Fair use exemptions of the copyrighted materials expire at the end of two years.  To use multimedia projects after the two years, obtain appropriate copyright permission.

Librarian Note: This Help guide is designed to share information on copyright and related topics and issues. If you have any questions or concerns about Copyright, please contact us and we will do our best to find an answer your query. This guide does not offer legal advice and is not intended to take the place of legal counsel.