What is a citation?
A citation, or reference, is the quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing of someone else's work, used as a basis for your own ideas and research.
A citation also refers to the information about a source, such as title, author, date, etc., which gives credit to the original author and shows readers where to find the original work. There are two parts to a citation: the in-text citation, which goes next to the quoted material, and the reference list citation, found at the end of a paper or report. This list may also called a bibliography.
GO TO CITATION HELP FROM UVIC LIBRARIES to find out how to properly format citations by APA, MLA, or Chicago styles.
How can you keep your citations organized? REFWORKS
There are a number of citation styles and the Library holds print copies and quick guides at the Research Help desk. Refworks can help with formatting your references / bibliography and your in-text citations.
For many POLI courses, the recommended styles are APA 6th or Chicago 16th Author-Date.
Each of these styles requires a reference list of sources. APA refers to this list as "References" Chicago refers to it as "Bibliography".
Each of these styles requires the use of in-text citations for work quoted, paraphrased or summarized. An in-text citation MUST include three elements:
In-text examples:
APA: (Smith, 2000, p.987)
Chicago: (Smith 2000, 987)
Reference list examples: consult the quick guides at the links below for book, journal, newspaper, government documents, websites, and more. Note that ebooks and ejournals require additional information such as a DOI,or a URL, and for Chicago, an access date. Note: Your professor may not require access dates , urls, or doi's.
APA Ejournal example:
Kossinets, G. & Watts, D.J. (2009). Origins of Homophily in an Evolving Social Network. American Journal of Sociology 115(2), 405–50. doi:10.1086/599247.
Chicago Ejournal example:
Link to online quick quides
Newspapers: Consult rules 15.47 and 14.206
If you consulted the article online, include a URL; include an access date only if your publisher or discipline requires one. If no author is identified, begin the citation with the article title.
Mendelsohn, Daniel. 2010. “But Enough about Me.” New Yorker, January 25.
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, and Robert Pear. 2010. “Wary Centrists Posing Challenge in Health Care Vote.” New York Times, February 27. Accessed February 28, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28health.html.
(Mendelsohn 2010, 68)
(Stolberg and Pear 2010)
See also rules 15.47 and 14.206 of the Chicago Quick Guide
Policy documents
Government document no individual author, online
European Commission Social Protection Committee, Child poverty and well-being in the EU : current status and way forward , (Luxembourg: European Commission Directorate-General for Employment,Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities,Unit E.2, 2007), online: http://www.aved.gov.bc.ca/campus2020/campus2020-thinkingahead-report.pdf.
See rules 15.46 and 14.281 of the Chicago Quick Guide
EndNote is a software tool offering a number of bibliographic formatting options and bibliographic file management features to suit most academic disciplines, from the sciences to the humanities.
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