Guides: FYS: Relational Communication in a Technological Age (Daum): How/Why Cite

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Citation Styles

Citation styles can be difficult to learn.

Here are links to guides for some of the most popular style guides.

MLA

Bible: in-text citation

(New Jerusalem Bible 1 Chron. 21.8)

Chicago Manual of Style

Bible: footnotes

6. 2 Kings 11:8 (New Revised Standard Version).

7. 1 Cor. 6:1–10 (NRSV).

Turabian Guide for Writers

These Guides are from OWL, the Purdue Online Writing Lab.

What is MLA?

MLA

MLA (Modern Language Association) style specifies guidelines for formatting manuscripts and using the English language in writing. MLA style also provides writers with a system for referencing their sources through parenthetical citation in their essays and Works Cited pages.

As with any citation stystem using it correctly protects the writer from accusations of plagiarism. As mentioned earlier in this guide proper citation builds credibility to the paper by demonstrating accountability to source material.

If you are asked to use MLA format, be sure to consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (8th edition). Publishing scholars and graduate students should also consult the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (3rd edition).

Descriptions for Style Guide (MLA)
Seas, K., & Brizee, A. (2010, November 1, 2010). General format. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/

What is Chicago Style

Pepperdine University Libraries subscribe to the Chicago Manual of Style Online

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) covers a variety of topics from manuscript preparation and publication to grammar, usage, and documentation. These resources follow the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, which was issued in September 2010.

There are two main styles:

The Notes-Bibliography System (NB), which is used by those in literature, history, and the arts.
- The Chicago NB system is most often used in humanities and provides writers with a system for referencing their sources through footnote or endnote citation in their writing and through bibliography pages.
  
  As with any citation stystem using it correctly protects the writer from accusations of plagiarism. As mentioned earlier in this guide proper citation builds credibility to the paper by demonstrating accountability to source material.
The Author-Date System, which is preferred in the sciences.
- In the Author-Date System each citation consists of two parts: the text citations, which provides brief identifying information within the text, and the reference list (list of sources used) which provides full bibliographic information.

Descriptions for Style Guides (Chicago)
Clements, J., Angeli, E., Schiller, K., Gooch, S., Pinkert, L. & Brizee, A., 2011.. "General format." The Purdue OWL, October 12. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/01//

Best Practices for Avoiding Plagiarism

There are many ways to avoid plagiarism, including developing good research habits, good time management, and taking responsibility for your own learning. Here are some specific tips:

Don't procrastinate with your research and assignments.
Good research takes time. Procrastinating makes it likely you'll run out of time or be unduly pressured to finish. This sort of pressure can often lead to sloppy research habits and bad decisions. Plan your research well in advance, and seek help when needed from your professor, from librarians and other campus support staff.
Commit to doing your own work.
If you don't understand an assignment, talk with your professor. Don't take the "easy way" out by asking your roommate or friends for copies of old assignments. A different aspect of this is group work. Group projects are very popular in some classes on campus, but not all. Make sure you clearly understand when your professor says it's okay to work with others on assignments and submit group work on assignments, versus when assignments and papers need to represent your own work.
Be 100% scrupulous in your note taking.
As you prepare your paper or research, and as you begin drafting your paper. One good practice is to clearly label in your notes your own ideas (write "ME" in parentheses) and ideas and words from others (write "SMITH, 2005" or something to indicate author, source, source date). Keep good records of the sources you consult, and the ideas you take from them. If you're writing a paper, you'll need this information for your bibliographies or references cited list anyway, so you'll benefit from good organization from the beginning.
Cite your sources scrupulously.
Always cite other people's work, words, ideas and phrases that you use directly or indirectly in your paper. Regardless of whether you found the information in a book, article, or website, and whether it's text, a graphic, an illustration, chart or table, you need to cite it. When you use words or phrases from other sources, these need to be in quotes.
Understand good paraphrasing.
Simply using synonyms or scrambling an author's words and phrases and then using these "rewrites" uncredited in your work is plagiarism, plain and simple. Good paraphrasing requires that you genuinely understand the original source, that you are genuinely using your own words to summarize a point or concept, and that you insert in quotes any unique words or phrases you use from the original source. Good paraphrasing also requires that you cite the original source. Anything less and you veer into the dangerous territory of plagiarism.

For more information visit the Seaver College's Academic Integrity Policies.