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Reference & Citation in Writing
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This resource provides a list of key concepts, words, and phrases that multi-lingual writers may find useful if they are new to writing in the North American educational context. It covers concepts and and key words pertaining to the stages in the writing process, style, citation and reference, and other common expressions in academic writing
When your professors or instructors say you need to give reference to some work that you used in your paper, it means that you should indicate where you got the work or information from. There are a variety of ways to write references such as APA style, MLA style, and Chicago style. Your professors or instructors will want you to use one of these styles to write references at the end of your paper. When readers read your paper, they should be able to know where you the sources have come from.
You will often hear that you need to cite your work from your professors and instructors. This means that you should indicate where the information that you're using came from. For example, when you want to use some words or phrases from some websites or books, you should let the readers know what kind of sources you used, who created the source, and when the source was created. Basically, you are giving credit to the authors of the source that you used in your paper.
Plagiarizing means that you have taken information, ideas, or phrasing from a source and then used them in your own text without mentioning anything about the author who originally created your sources. In a way, you are stealing something from people without telling the people who had created the original source. For more information on plagiarism, click here .
When you summarize, you find the main points of the original text and compose a shorter version of the original text. A summary should be able to tell the readers what the original text is about and who the author is. You may use summaries to review some materials about a topic or support your ideas. For more information on writing summaries, click here .
Paraphrase means that you take some words or sentences from your sources, and put them in your own words. You still need to mention the original author of the words and sentences by appropriate citation style (APA, MLA). You paraphrase words or sentences by changing them to different words, or sentence structures without changing the original meaning. For more information on writing paraphrases, click here .
In-text citation
In-text means in a body of text that you have composed. In-text citation means that you cite the sources that you use in your words, sentences, and paragraphs in the actual body of your essay. Whatever you are using outside information your text, you should cite the sources that you are using in-text. For example
Quote means that you take a word, phrase, or sentence(s) directly or indirectly from the person who originally created that word or phrase or sentences. You then place these inside of quotation marks with an in-text citation.
Direct quote
Direct quote means that you take a word, phrase, sentence directly from the person who created that word, phrase, sentence. You then place this inside of quotation marks with an in-text citation.
Indirect quote
Indirect quote means that you take a word, phrase, sentence from the person who created that word and put them in your own words. When you use them in your text, you must use them with an in-text citation. In this case, you do not need quotation marks around the word, phrase, or sentence. You should still put in-text citation.
Block quote
Block quote means that you take a paragraph or two from the original source and put them in your text with citation. In a block quote, you do not need quotation mark. Usually, if the quote has more than 40 words, you should take it as a block quote.
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Depending on what style is used to write the report, a variety of samples can be found online to assist the writing process. The Purdue OWL gives extensive information about writing in MLA or APA style.
Purdue OWL is an acronym for Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab. Purdue OWL offers a variety of writing resources to the public for free. The online lab contains resources for many different styles of writing, from academic papers to jo...
As anyone who has ever written a paper for a college class knows, there are certain style rules and guidelines to be followed depending on which discipline you are in. For many college students, learning APA style can be tricky.
When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source
The APA manual recommends the use of the author-date citation structure for in-text citation references. This structure requires that any in-text citation (i.e.
APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 7th
Start Here. General Format. Guidelines on writing an APA style paper. In-Text Citations. Resources on using in-text citations in APA style
Cite the last name of the author and year of publication. Include page numbers within the citation when directly quoting the authors' words, paraphrasing a
The 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual requires that the chosen font be accessible (i.e., legible) to all readers and that it be used consistently
Your reference list should appear at the end of your paper. It provides the information necessary for a reader to locate and retrieve any source you cite in the
Parenthetical citations and narrative citations in-text are formatted the same as with any other source (first element of the reference list entry, year)
From Title of Webpage, by A.A. Author
MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or
In this case, you do not need quotation marks around the word, phrase, or sentence. You should still put in-text citation. Block quote. Block quote means that