Term Writing Project: Formats for citing and referencing your sources

Nats101 Section 17, 18

Spring 2008

Clear and consistent citation and referencing allows your reader to follow your argument and to see how well it is backed up by prior research.  There are many different ways to properly cite and reference your sources.  For this term writing assignment, use the following formats for citing and referencing your sources of information. 

Use in-text citations to support statements that are not common knowledge and any quotes you might use. If you have one or two authors, give their last names and the publication year as your citation, in parentheses.  An example might be (Johnson, 2002) or (Smith & Jones, 2007). If you have 3 or more authors, use “et al.” after the first author, as in (Liu et al., 2000).

        For example, here's a paragraph with parenthetical citations:

Atmospheric CO2 concentration records are now available from ice cores such as that taken at Law Dome in East Antarctica (Etheridge et al., 1998). Because difference in CO2 concentration between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are quite small (Keeling et al., 1979), the Law Dome record can be used to estimate CO2 concentrations in North America during the Medieval Warm Period 1000 years ago. Indeed, Tans (2006) determined that average annual CO2 concentrations in Colorado were within 1.5 ppm of CO2 measured in Antarctica over the period from 1990 to 2005.

  • At the end of your paper, you will have a “References Cited” section, putting your references into a standard format.  For example from the previous paragraph with citations (Etheridge et al., 1998), (Keeling et al., 1979), and (Tans 2006) you would have

References Cited

Etheridge, D.M., Steele, L.P., Langenfelds, R.L., Francey, R.J., Barnola, J.-M. & Morgan V.I. (1998). Historical CO2 records from the Law Dome DE08, DE08-2 and DSS ice cores. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, USA.

Keeling, C.D., Mook, W.G. & Tans, P.P. (1979). Recent trends in the 13C/12C ratio of atmospheric dioxide. Nature, 277, 121-123.

Tans, P.P. (2006). Interhemispheric comparison of CO2 concentrations in the NOAA flask network. Journal of Geophysical Research, 88, 16417-17425.

  • Below are some important additional formats for references, depending on the type of reference (book, journal article, magazine article, online references). 
      • Book with 2 or more authors:

First Author’s last name, First and Second Initial., & Second Author’s last name, First and Second Initial. (Year). Title italicized. Publication location: Publishing company.

Example:

 

Gonzalez, A., & Norwine, J. (1998). The New Third World. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

§         Article or chapter in a book with an editor:

Author’s (of article or chapter) last name, First and Second Initial. (Year). Title of article or chapter. In Editor’s First and Second initial and last name (Ed.) Title of book italicized. (page numbers). Publication location: Publishing company.

Example:

Ong. W. J. (9182). Oral Remembering and Narrative Structures.In D. Tannen (Ed.), Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk. (pp. 12 - 24). Washington DC.: Georgetown University Press.

      • Article from journal with 3 authors:

Author’s last name, First and Second Initial., Author’s last name, First and Second Initial., & Author’s last name, First and Second Initial. (Year). Article title. Journal title, volume number italicized(issue number), page numbers.

Example:

White, S., Winzelberg, A., & Norlin, J. (1992). Laughter and stress. Humor, 5(3), 343-55.

      • Article from a Magazine:

Author’s last name, First and Second Initial. (Year, Month Date). Article title. Journal title, volume number (if given) italicized, page numbers.

Example:

Stein, J. (2003 Aug. 4). Just say om. Time, 162, 48-57.

    • If you are using electronically accessed sources, use the examples below to put your references in standard format.   The following is from The Columbia Guide to Online Style, second edition, by Janice R. Walker and Todd Taylor (2006).  The general format for electronic references is:

Author's Last Name, Initial(s). (Date of document). Title of document. Title of complete work [if applicable]. (Edition or revision [if applicable]). Protocol and address, or name of database and database publisher (Access path or directories or document or file number). (Date of access).

Specific referencing styles for online sources are:

      • Article in Online Journal:  List the author’s last name and initial(s), the year of publication, and the title of the article, capitalizing only the first word and all proper nouns. Next, list the title of the journal, in italics, followed by a comma and the volume number, also in italics. Give the issue number in parentheses in roman type, followed by a colon and the page numbers, if applicable. Finally, provide the online publication information, including the URL and the date of access. When the article can be located from the publication information (e.g., the author, title, and publication date) from the main page of the online journal, then cite the URL for the main page of the journal. Example:

Trupe, A.L. (2002). Academic literacy in a wired world: Redefining genres for college writing courses. Kairos: Rhetoric, Technology, Pedagogy, 7(2). http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/ (7 June 2006).

      • Web Site: Begin with the name of the author, moderator, or other responsible person or organization, if available, followed by the date of publication, the title of the site, the URL, and the date of access.

American Chemical Society. (2006). Chemistry.org. http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/home.html (24 Mar. 2006).

      • Article from Library Database: Cite the article as you would the same article in a print publication, listing the author’s name; the date of publication; the title of the article; the title of the journal or other publication in which it appears; and any other publication information. Follow with the title of the database or information service in italics, the name of the publisher or retrieval service or the Internet protocol and address as applicable, and, in parentheses, the date of access. Include any document or file numbers if available.

Burman, S., & Allen-Meares, P. (1994). Neglected victims of murder: Children’s witness to parental homicide. Social Work, 39(1), 28-34. Academic Search Premier. EbscoHost. (AN #9403302574). (25 July 2006).

      • Graphics, Audio, or Video Files:  To cite a graphic, audio, or video file in the context of the page on which it is published, provide information about the file as well as about the page or site on which it resides. Notice that titles of works of art, motion pictures, and records or CDs are italicized; titles of other graphics, brief video files, and individual song titles are not. You may include a description of the file type in square brackets immediately following the title, if desired.

CBS News. (2006, January 16). MLK Jr.’s legacy [Video]. CBS Evening News. http://www.cbsnews.com (Keyword: Videos/MLK) (24 Mar. 2006).

 

For files without titles, use the file name instead.

press-image4.jpg [Graphic]. http://universe.nasa.gov/images/press-image4.jpg (27 Mar. 2006).

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