Citing Sources

When you take ideas from another source, whether you use them verbatim or not, you should acknowledge your borrowing. Failure to do so is plagiarism. Exactly how assiduous you should be in acknowledging your sources, however, is a matter of judgement. The following is a usually reliable guideline.

• When you are sure that an idea is "common knowledge" or a generally held opinion, you need not acknowledge your source for it. After all, many other sources could just as easily be cited for the same idea.

• When it appears, however, that an idea (fact or opinion) is the original property of your source, or is not widely known or held, or if you are unsure, or if you are quoting -- then you should indeed acknowledge your source.

Citation of sources usually involves two parts. In both, the aim is to provide adequate, accurate, concise, and consistently formatted information, so that your reader may consult your sources with assurance.

1. Footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical citations. These citations are placed close to the material you quote or paraphrase from other sources. Until recently, essay style in the humanities favoured footnotes and endnotes; they are still common in many humanities journals. Gradually, however, less intrusive parenthetical citations have been gaining favour, and we recommend that you use them.

2. Bibliography or reference list. This list appears at the end of your paper. Some bibliographies comprise all material that the author deems relevant to the topic. In conjunction with parenthetical citations, however, your reference list should include only works that you have cited in your paper.

Parenthetical Citations and Reference Lists

In the parenthetical-citation method, the main burden of citing bibliographic information for a source falls to the reference list at the end of your essay. The parenthetical citation itself provides but a brief pointer to the list entry, along with the exact place in the source (usually a page number) from which your borrowing comes.

There are several different formatting conventions widely used in the scholarly world, including those proposed by the Modern Language Association (MLA), by the American Psychological Association (APA), and in The Chicago Manual of Style (14th edition, 1993), the authoritative guide published by the University of Chicago Press. All are acceptable, so long as you consistently follow one set.

The formats below are mostly based on the practice recommended in The Chicago Manual of Style. Its principal conventions are as follows.

• Parenthetical citation: Within parenthesis, cite just the author's last name and the publication date; after a comma, cite the page number or volume: page. The citation usually comes at the end of a sentence, being placed before the final punctuation mark (but after quotation marks and quoted punctuation).

• Reference list: Cite the author's last name, first name. Publication date. Title. Place of publication: publisher. Authors are listed in alphabetical order; works by each author are listed chronologically by publication date.

These conventions are adapted to fit the different kinds of material you cite. Below are some examples of common parenthetical citation (PC) and reference list (RL) formats. (For situations not covered below, see the far more extensive examples in Turabian 1996, 175-213, and The Chicago Manual of Style 1993, 637-699).

Book
Cite the names of up to three authors. Above three authors, cite the first followed by "et al." (and others). Cite the book's title in italics.

Book with an editor and/or translator:

Reprint edition of a book

Essay in a periodical
Cite the essay's title within quotation marks. Cite the journal's title in italics and the volume: page-range of the essay.

Essay in a book
Again, cite the essay's title in quotation marks, the book title in italics. Cite the name of the book's editor.

Unsigned entry in a dictionary or encyclopedia
These entries are often not cited in the reference list at all, but confined to the parenthetical citation. The latin abbreviation s.v. (sub verbo: under the word) directs the reader to the proper entry.

Signed entry in an encyclopedia
Practice can vary here. The Chicago Manual of Style advises citing author, entry, and encyclopedia, again omitting the citation from the reference list. The length and importance of some entries, however, argue for treating them more like essays in books. In the example below, the volume and page-range of the entry have been included.

Musical score
Cite as you would a book, with the composer as author. The date of a score's publication may sometimes be found on the bottom of the first page of music.

Musical score with an editor
There are numerous editions of many pieces. You should specify which edition you are citing, including the editor's name.

Musical score from collected works
Collected-works editions of composers are usually good sources of high-quality "Urtext" scores. These editions can be in many volumes, often split into series or volume-groups.

Sound recording
Depending on circumstances, cite either by composer or by performer(s). Include the recording company and company serial number of the recording.

Recording notes

Web pages
The World Wide Web is a volatile place, where files can change location or disappear entirely without warning. The following format is adapted from some of those suggested in on-line citation guides (see the Other Guides page of this guide). In this format, you attempt to be precise about the exact date the Web page was created or last modified. Some Web pages identify no author (try citing by title) or creation/modification date. Always list the page's Universal Resource Locator (URL).

Library Catalogue Numbers

In your reference list, please cite the catalogue numbers for all library materials you list. This is not a normal practice in bibliographies and reference lists, but it will help your instructor to read and grade your essay.