CITATION OF SOURCES
For any written assignment defined as a formal writing assignment (ie.,
all the essays required in this course), you are expected to provide specific
citations to the texts that you use in support of your paper.
What are citations?
In general: they are bookmarks
for the reader, allowing him/her to return to the source you have used
to make your point. They also serve as acknowledgments of the sources
you have used (particularly so that your reader does not think you are
passing off someone else’s ideas as your own)
In practice: citations are
brief statements of the author and/or title of the work you are referring
to, along with a reference point (usually a page number) within that work.
For example, if you wanted to make a parenthetical citation of Hollister’s
opinions of King John in a paper, you would include a citation such as
this .... (Hollister, p. 256).
Types of Citations
1. Parenthetical citations: appear in parentheses directly after the
words to which they provide reference. Parenthetical citations usually
include the author’s last name and the number of the page to which you
are referring). For example, “Juhel of Mayenne was only 20 years old or
so when he founded the priory of Marmoutier in his castle keep (Barton,
p. 369).” The words in quotation marks are what you’ve written; but
since you’ve taken this information from another source, you need to indicate
that source. Here the citation appears in parentheses to some book by Barton
at p. 369. NOTE: parenthetical citations are informal; they are acceptable
(sometimes) in student writing, but never appear in formal academic work.
2. Formal citations (endnotes or footnotes): this is the way that
scholars cite their references. The format of a footnote is indistinguishable
from that of an endnote; the only difference between them lies in where
they appear on the page (footnotes at the bottom of each page; endnotes
in a separate list at the end of the paper). Modern word-processing
makes it childishly easy to create either sort of note; look (usually)
under the ‘insert’ pull-down menu of your word-processor and you will find
a choice for ‘footnotes/endnotes’. When you create one, a superscript
number will appear in the body of your text where you created the note.
That number is meant to alert the reader that he or she ought now to redirect
his/her eyes either to the bottom of the page (footnote) or the back of
the paper (endnote) for the relevant citation. NOTE: although word-processors
allow the creation of superscript note numbers as roman numerals (e.g.,
i, ii, v, xiii), this is to be avoided. Always make sure you are creating
arabic numerals (e.g., 1, 2, 3). [see the end of the next paragraph for
examples]
What appears within the foot- or endnote is also important. For a book,
you ought to include all of the information you would provide in a bibliographic
entry: author, title of book (underlined or italicized ), and publishing
information (place published, publisher, date published). If the work to
which you are referring is an article, the format is slightly different:
author, title of article (in quotation marks), title of journal (italicized
or underlined), volume number of journal, and year of journal. Either
way, you will also need to include the specific page number to which you
are referring the reader. If you are citing a web-site
(or on-line text), the rules are less clear. If the on-line material is
clearly derived from a book, then you ought to provide all of the usual
information one expects for a book, but you should add the URL and the
webpage title; if the page lacks proper bibliographic information, provide
whatever you can. Here is an example of a endnote to a book. [1]
Here is an example of a citation to an article. [2] (note
that a footnote would look the same, but would simply appear at the bottom
of each page of your essay/paper). Here is an example of a citation
to a web-site. [3] Foot or endnotes are always
preferable to parenthetical citations.
WHEN must you provide a citation?
1. Whenever you use an author’s words directly. In this case,
the author’s words must appear in quotation
marks in the body of your essay and the citation should appear
immediately after the closed quotation mark. For instance, in the
following made-up sentence I quote myself and use a parenthetical citation
to a made-up work: “As the noted medieval historian, Richard Barton,
once said, ‘Medieval History is cool’ (Barton, p. 297)’.”
2. Whenever you have paraphrased a source (that is, taken the
gist of it and reworked it into your own
words) or when you refer to an episode from a source (for example,
“In the relief clause of Magna Carta, the barons demanded ....”).
Because you are not using the exact words of the original text, you have
some leeway about where you place the citation. Place it either at the
end of the paragraph or immediately after the relevant portion of your
paper.
3. Whenever you mention a fact or event that is not generally
known. Lots of confusion can and does exist
about what is and what is not ‘generally well-known.’
Use common sense. You don’t need to cite Hollister if you state that the
Battle of Hastings occurred in 1066 (this is a famous and well-known event/date).
More obscure material might require a citation.
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ENDNOTES:
1. Mary W. Smith, Footnoting for Fun and Profit (Boston: Academic Press, 1980), 44.
2. John Q. Doe, “How to Create Footnotes,” Journal of Scholarship 15 (1999), 219.
3. Cartulaire de l'abbaye cardinale de la Trinité de Vendôme, ed. Charles Métais, volume 1 (Paris: A. Picard et fils, 1893), 1:14-18. Translated from the Latin by Richard Barton and published on-line under the title “Land Tenure and Family Conflict: the Honor of Vendôme, c. 1006-1040,” at http://www.uncg.edu/~rebarton/vendome.htm