How to Cite Your Sources

For Paraphrasing: make reference to the author and year of publication, using author-date format.

• APA is a great citation style that is commonly used by college students in the sciences (Smith, 2001)

For Direct Quotes: include the author, year of publication, and the page number. Introduce the quotation with a signal phrase that includes the author's last name followed by the date of publication in parentheses.

• According to Smith (2001), "APA is one of the best citation styles" (p. 32). 

All sources that are cited in the text must appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

Direct quotes are used when you are repeating another's words verbatim (word for word). You should always use quotation marks before and after the quoted phrases. 

As a rule of thumb, be stingy in your use of direct quotations, paraphrase whenever possible. 

Direct quotes should always include the author's last name. year of publication and the page number. To protect the flow of your paper, introduce the author's name using signal verbs before the quote. 

Short quotes

             Jones (2018) argued that "..." (p. 56).

            She concludes, "..." (Smith, 2015, pp. 10–12).

Quotes in the middle of a sentence​

          Roberts and James (2016) seem to agree with this point “writers should always…” (p. 364), suggesting that ....

Block Quotes

Quotes longer than 40 words should be introduced then start with the quote on a new line 1/2 inch from the left margin  Don’t use quotation marks. Insert the exact page number, in brackets, after the full stop at the end of the quote.

 In 2008, Jamison found the following:

          Many young people can be encouraged to study more by

          introducing specific incentives including . . .  providing caffeine. (pp. 263–264)

Indicating Errors or missing words 

Quotes with misspelled or misused terms

Insert [sic] after the misspelled word (in brackets, italicized).

"Nausea was reported even when reel [sic] drugs were administered" (Marks, 1998).

Indicating a correction 

Use brackets, not parentheses, to enclose material such as an addition or explanation within the quotation.

“They are studying, from an evolutionary perspective, to what extent [children’s] play is a luxury that can be dispensed with when there are too many other competing claims on the growing brain…”

Indicating omitted words

Use the three ellipsis points (…) to indicate that you have omitted material from the original quote. Do not omit words from the beginning or the end of the quotation to avoid any misinterpretation.

In-text citation capitalization, quotes, and italics/underlining

• Always capitalize proper nouns, including author names and initials: J. Doe.

• If you refer to the title of a source within your paper, capitalize all words that are longer than 3 letters within the title of a source: Moving and Change. Exceptions apply to short words that are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs: Writing Blog Posts, The Time Is Now.
  (Note: in your Bibliography, only the first word of a title will be capitalized: i.e. Writing new media.)

• When capitalizing titles, capitalize both words in a hyphenated compound word: Natural-Born Cyborgs.

• Capitalize the first word after a dash or colon: "Defining Film Rhetoric: The Case of Hitchcock's Vertigo."

• Italicize the titles of longer works such as books, edited collections, movies, television series, documentaries, or albums: The Closing of the American Mind; The Wizard of Oz; Friends.

• Put quotation marks around the titles of shorter works such as journal articles, articles from edited collections, television series episodes, and song titles: "Multimedia Narration: Constructing Possible Worlds;" "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry."