Documentation Rules and Citation Styles

When writing any kind of research paper, you must cite your sources (i.e., use documentation to identify the material drawn from your readings). This is a basic requirement of research writing and copyright law, to make sure that you give proper credit to your sources of information and do not pass off someone else's work as your own, intentionally or unintentionally. Failure to use proper documentation is considered plagiarism, a serious breach of academic honesty and a violation of U.S. law. The sections that follow immediately below provide a brief discussion of basic documentation rules and a list of useful URLs (Web addresses) for further information about citation styles used in various academic disciplines.

BASIC DOCUMENTATION RULES (APA STYLE)

1. Direct (word-for-word) quotations from sources must be placed in quotation marks. If the quotation is very long (three lines or more), start it on a new line, indented from both left and right margins, and single spaced; quotation marks should not be used.
   
   
2. Follow every quotation with a note in parentheses that, for print sources (whether hard copy or electronic copy), gives the surname of the author and the year of publication, separated by a comma. For example: (Smith, 2009). If there is no author, use a short form of the title of the article, journal, or book.
   
   If the name of the author appears as part of the narrative, cite only the year of publication in parentheses. For example: Smith (2009) compares the business strategy to. . . .
   
   For interviews and personal communications, give the name of the person interviewed or from whom the communication was received, the medium (e.g., interview, telephone conversation, etc.), and the date. For example: (T. A. Smith, interview, July 10, 2009).
   
   
3. A similar note should follow all indirect or paraphrased quotations, even though you do not use quotation marks. Your wording should clearly indicate what material is from the source.
   
   
4. At the end of the paper, a reference list (list of works cited) should list all the sources used in the paper. (A bibliography, by contrast, cites all works used in the research and preparation of the paper, including citations of works for background or for further reading.)
   
   References in APA style are cited in text with an author-date citation system and are listed alphabetically by author's surname in the References section.

INFORMATION ABOUT CITATION STYLES

For additional information about citation styles such as APA and MLA, see the following Web sites.