Citing sources is an important step in writing an ethical and properly written paper. Without proper citations, a research paper or journal article could be thought of as incomplete or could be accused of plagiarism.
Whenever you cite sources, you must do it in two places:
The citation used in the text is an abridged version called an in-text citation. The citation used in the list is comprehensive and called a reference list in APA format, a works-cited list in MLA format, and a bibliography in Chicago format.
In-text citations, in turn, are included in three ways:
The one used along the sentence is called a narrative citation in APA and Chicago author-date styles and a citation in prose in MLA style. In-text citations in parentheses are generally called parenthetical citations. Citations that have a note in the text and the source information at the foot of the page are called footnotes. Here is an in-text citation and style overview:
When you write your paper, you review many published papers to collect points to substantiate your views, to give extra credit to your work, or to develop your ideas. In such cases, you will be accused of committing plagiarism if you fail to include the sources you referred to. Therefore, it is necessary that you give credit to the sources you used for your study.
While taking points or ideas, do not reproduce the content given in the source as such. Paraphrase the content and produce it in your own words. Sometimes, you may want to quote the views or thoughts present in a source as such in your paper. In such cases, enclose the quoted content in double quotation marks. Again, you need to add the source both in the text and in the list.
Over time, different citation styles have evolved to meet the needs of different disciplines. For example, to cite sources in the humanities discipline, MLA is broadly used, as the style is a good fit for literature. Chicago Notes and Bibliography is also most suited for humanities. For the social sciences discipline, the style that is most preferred by the scholars is APA, as it is appropriately suited for quantitative analysis. Chicago Author–Date style is used in science disciplines. These differences in the disciplines led to using different styles to suit the needs of the disciplines.
Below, you will see the templates and examples of the webpage of a website in MLA, APA, and Chicago styles.
In-text citations
In prose:
First mention: Nicola Conibere studies ….
Subsequent mention: Conibere explores ….
Parenthetical:
….(Conibere, Nicola)
Works-cited-list entry
The web page title should use title case (capitalize major words). The website name is italicized. Remember to cut off the https:// or http:// from the URL.
Template:
Author Surname, First Name. “Page Title.” Website Name. Date published, URL.
Example:
Conibere, Nicola. “Artists as Researchers, Collaborations and the Public Realm.” Artistic Doctorates in Europe. 27 Dec. 2017, www.artisticdoctorates.com/2017/12/27/artists-as-researchers-collaborations-and-the-public-realm-nicola-conibere-and-katye-coe-in-discussion-with-simon-ellis-uk/.
In-text citations
Narrative:
McGee (2021)
Parenthetical:
….(McGee, 2021)
Reference-list entry
The webpage name is italicized, and the site name is in plain text. If an organization is the author AND publisher, only mention its name as the page author.
Templates:
Author surname, First initial. (Year, Month Day published). Page title. Site Name. URL
Organization name. (Year, Month Day published). Page title. URL
Examples:
McGee, M. (2021, March 3). PSYCOM.net. https://www.psycom.net/addiction-substance-abuse
Chegg Inc. (2020, October 24). What is plagiarism? https://www.chegg.com/writing/guides/plagiarism-guide/
Notes-Bibliography format
In-text citation template and example:
Example sentence.1
———-
Author Surname, First Name. “Web page title.” Website name, posted date. URL.
Components in the essay are analyzed.1
———-
Stolar, Halina. “How to write a persuasive essay.” Chegg, 7 September 2020. https://www.chegg.com/writing/guides/writing-types/write-a-persuasive-essay/.
For citing websites in Chicago, the surname of the authors and page are used in narrative and parenthetical.
In-text citation template and example:
Narrative:
Author Surname (Published year)
Stolar (2020)
Parenthetical:
(Author Surname, Published year)
(Stolar, 2020)
Reference list entry template and example:
Author Surname, First Name. “Web page title.” Website name, posted date. URL.
Stolar, Halina. “How to write a persuasive essay?” Chegg, 7 September 2020. https://www.chegg.com/writing/guides/writing-types/write-a-persuasive-essay/.