Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab)
The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects.
Citing Sources
Why cite?
1. to recognize and credit an author’s work and ideas.
2. to enable the reader of your paper to find the article (or book, etc.) and read it.
3. to avoid possible copyright and plagiarism problems.
Most of the research tools you use will create a citation in the required style for you:
BULS. Click on Citation and choose the style - APA, Chicago, MLA - your professor requires.
Databases. MLA International Bibliography. Cite
Google Scholar. Click on More. Click on Cite.
Citation Management Programs (e.g., RefWorks, Zotero, etc.)
See also:
Research and Citation Resources
Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab)
Who has cited the article or book? Cited reference searching.
Finding out who has referred to your article connects you to the scholarly “conversation” or discussion of the topic. You might find articles that agree and other articles that disagree with your author’s methodology, interpretation, conclusions, etc. After reading a few articles and reflecting on their point of view, you will be able to draw your own conclusions about the authors' perspectives.
Web of Science: Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
Cited Reference Search. (bechdel a* 2006)
Google Scholar See Cited by #.
How Was the Book Reviewed? Masterful! Flawed!
Books are reviewed by scholars and researchers working in the same general area.
Some book reviewers might be from another discipline and have a different perspective.
Book reviews are published as journal articles or by scholarly institutions.
In the BULS search box, type (or copy/paste) the complete title of the book within quotation marks. The results begin with the BOOK and follow with REVIEW(s).
Example: "Autobiographical Comics Life Writing in Pictures"
Plagiarism
Your professor will review plagiarism with you. The website below provides examples of how to paraphrase and correctly cite the original source.
Avoid Plagiarism, University of Arizona Libraries.
Evaluating Sources
When you Google for sources, be sure you understand where they come from!
Evaluating Information, Johns Hopkins University.
A guide to evaluating sources including internet resources and social media plus a presentation on "peer review."
Evaluating Sources (YouTube)
