Citing Sources
Bibliographies/References/Works Cited
You may already be familiar with the bibliography, references, or works cited page that lists your sources at the end of your project. These pages are alphabetical lists of sources and provide information as to who created the work, the title of the work, when it was published, who published it, and where you found it. There are very specific rules as to how these citations are constructed. There are also several specific styles that give their own rules. Styles such as MLA, APA, Chicago, etc. are used. Generally, our school district supports MLA, but your teacher may request another style.
Don't worry! There are several cites to help you construct a perfect citation.
Purdue OWL - Purdue University's Online Writing Lab has an excellent section on Research and Citation. Choose the style you need to follow, and then click on the Formatting and Style Guide. There are links to show you how to cite books, periodicals, electronic sources, and more.
bibme - Bibme is an online tool to help you generate a citation. Pick your style, choose the medium (book, magazine, newspaper, website, etc.) type in a title, and any other identifying information you have (author, ISBN) and click on search. WARNING: bibme does not always gather all the information that is available. You will need to fill in as many of the fields as possible. This means you will likely have to scan the website or book to find the date, the publisher, the author, etc. Once you have all the information entered, click on "Create Citation." Voilá, bibme generates a citation that you can copy and paste into your list of works cited.
EasyBib is also an online citation maker. It is a free service as long as you are only using MLA citation rules. It defaults to citing websites, but you can cite 59 different things, including images, videos, pamphlets and blogs. Like bibme, it may skip information you will need to provide. Check to see which things are highlighted in orange - those things are missing and you will need to find that information (if it's available).
When citing, referencing or using any site, it is important to give credit to the authors. To help you with this, Purdue and Boise State Universities has developed excellent resources.
- Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
- Boise State Albertsons Library (Great for learning how to cite Youtube, Facebook, Twitter...)
OR
- Try: bibme.org
- Try: EasyBib.com
This last link will take you to a document that will provide you with samples of referenced sources using the MLA method.
MLA 8 Detailed Style Guide (Dist #73)
MLA 8 Style Guide (Juniors)
In-Text Citations
more to come....