Citation format examples: - MLA format - APA format

Once you have located and read an adequate number of sources, incorporated ideas from your reading with your own understanding of the topic, and presented your analysis of your topic in a research paper, it is essential to cite the sources and you must use the proper bibliographic format to do so.

The main reason for citing your sources is to give credit to those authors whose ideas you used in your research. Even when you do not quote directly from another work, if reading that source contributed to the ideas presented in your paper, you must give the authors proper credit by including their work in your bibliography. Citing your sources allows readers of your work to easily find the sources to which you've referred.

If you do not cite the sources upon which your research is based, you will be guilty of plagiarism. Plagiarism is using the ideas and writings of others and representing them as your own. Even if you do not copy another source word-for-word, but rather rephrase the source without attributing it to the original author by including a footnote, you are guilty of plagiarism. Plagiarism is a serious violation of academic standards and is punishable with a failing grade, possible expulsion from the institution, and may subject you to ostracism by your peers. The increasing availability of electronic information has unfortunately made it easy to copy another author's works.

 

Bibliography or "Works Cited" List

The most common way to cite sources is to use a bibliography or "Works Cited" list at the end of your research paper. The Works Cited list includes a citation for each of the sources you used to write your paper. The citations are formatted in a consistent style according one of several standard citation formats. Two of the most common formats used for undergraduate research papers are the MLA (Modern Language Association) format and the APA (American Psychological Association) format. Some instructors specify which format they prefer; others leave it up to the students as long as they maintain one consistent format.

The list of all citations is commonly organized in a single alphabetical list. Each different type of source--book, magazine article, journal article, newspaper article, article from a reference book, World Wide Web page--has a precise format that is specified by the given format (MLA, APA or other).

Citing Database Information for Full Text Sources Accessed Electronically

With the increasing availability of full-text articles from computerized periodical databases (online, CD-ROM and other electronic formats), students have questions about how to cite documents that have been accessed electronically. If the full text of an article or other document is accessed from an electronic database (even if the document was originally published in a traditional print publication), the name of the database, the database service or publisher and the date the information was accessed must be included in addition to the information for the originally published document. But, if an electronic database was used just to find a reference (a citation and/or abstract) to a document, but the full text of the document was accessed from the original print publication, the database information should not be included in the bibliographic citation. (See examples below in the "Citation Format for Articles from Periodicals" for either MLA or APA format.)

Below are examples of how to cite most of the common types of sources according to the:

• MLA format
  and
• APA format

• General Information
• Citation Format for Books
• Citation Format for Articles from Periodicals (Magazines, Journals & Newspapers)
  • Magazine articles
  • Journal articles
  • Newspaper articles
  • Book review articles
  • Articles for which the full text is accessed from a Web database
  • Articles for which an abstract is accessed from a Web database
  • Articles for which full text is from a non-Web-based online database
  • Articles for which full text is from a CD-ROM database
• Citation Format for Articles from Encyclopedias or Other Reference Sources
• Citation Format for World Wide Web Pages

For more detailed explanations of how to use the MLA format, you should consult the official MLA style manual:

• MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (REF PN 147 G444 1998)

Ask a librarian to show you this guide book.

• In a bibliography or "Works Cited" list, all citations are listed in alphabetical order, according to the last name of the author. If no author is listed, alphabetize by the first word in the title (ignoring "A", "An" or "The" at the beginning of a title).
  
• In all cases, the citation begins with the author's name (last name first) whenever the author's name is listed. If the author's name is not given, then the citation begins with the title of the work (book, article or other document). If there are two or three authors, the second and third authors' names are listed first name first as shown in the book example below.
  
• Book, magazine, journal and newspaper titles are always underlined.
  
• Article titles are always put in "quotations".
  
• Subtitles are designated by a colon (:).
  
• All words in any titles (of books, articles or other documents) are capitalized, except the following parts of speech (when they are not the first word in a title or subtitle):
  • Articles (a, an, the)
  • Prepositions (e.g., in, of , to, against, between)
  • Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet)
  • the to in infinitives (as in How to Play Chess)
    
    

Books with a single author:

Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). Title. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Gamson, Joshua. R. Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press,1994.

Books with two, three or more authors: 

First author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any), and Second author's First name Middle initial (if any) Last name. Title. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.
Note: For a book with three authors, list all three author's names. Only the first author's name should be listed last name first. For a book with more than 3 authors, list only the first author's name followed by a comma and the words et al.

Stewart, David W., and David H. Furse. Effective Television Advertising: A Study of 1000 Commercials. Lexington: Lexington Books, 1986.

Jonson, Albert, Thomas Gray, and Jessie Muncy. Information Access. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Baker, Nellie, et al. Book Publishing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Books with editor(s) rather than author(s):

Editor's last name, First name Middle initial (if any), ed. Title. Place of publication: Year of publication.

Baughman, Cynthia, ed. Women on Ice: Feminist Essays on the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Spectacle. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Chapter in a book with an editor:

Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). "Title of Chapter or Essay." Title of Book. Ed. Editor's first and last name. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication. Page numbers for the chapter.

Fox, Aaron A. "Split Subjectivity in Country Music and Honky-Tonk Discourse." All That Glitters: Country Music in America. Ed. George H. Lewis. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1993. 131-139.
 

Magazine article:

Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). "Title of Article." Title of Magazine Day (if given) Month (abbreviated except May, June, and July) Year: Page numbers of article (if the article is not printed on consecutive pages, give the first page followed by a +).

Bazell, Robert. "Science and Society: Growth Industry." New Republic 15 Mar. 1993: 13-14.

Frank, Michael. "The Wild, Wild West." Architectural Digest June 1993: 180+.

Journal article:

Author's Last name, First name Middle initial (if any). "Title of article." Journal title Volume number. Issue number (if each number of journal begins on page 1) (Date of publication): page numbers.

Babrow, Austin S. "Student Motives for Watching Soap Operas." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 31.3 (Summer 1997): 309-321.

Newspaper article:

Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). "Article Title." Title of Newspaper Day Month (abbreviated except May, June, and July) Year: Section and page number(s) (if the article is not printed on consecutive pages, just give the first page followed by +).

MacKenzie, Bill. "Packin' the Heat." San Francisco Chronicle 4 Nov. 1993: A16+.

Book review article:

Reviewer's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). "Article Title." (if more than "Book Review" and/or title of the book) Rev. of Title of Book, by Book author's first name Middle initial (if any) Last name. Title of the Periodical Volume and/or date and page information for the appropriate type of periodical as shown above. If the full text of the article is accessed from an electronic database, include database information and access date as shown below.

Hendrickson, Donald. Rev. of The Case Against Immigration: The Moral, Economic Social and Environmental Reasons for Reducing United States Immigration Back to Traditional Levels, by Roy Howard Beck. Foreign Affairs 75.4 (July-August 1996): 146.

Fukuyama, Francis. "No Vacancy." Rev. of The Case Against Immigration: The Moral, Economic Social and Environmental Reasons for Reducing United States Immigration Back to Traditional Levels, by Roy Howard Beck. New York Times Book Review 1 Sept. 1996:18.

Article for which the full text is accessed from an online periodical database on the World Wide Web (such as InfoTrac, WilsonWeb, Proquest, Lexis-Nexis or Dialog web-based databases):

Article information as shown above for magazine, journal or newspaper. Title of Database. Name of database service or publisher. Date of researcher's access. <URL (electronic address)> (because the length of the URL may sometimes be excessively long, the cited URL may be either the complete address for the web page of the full-text article or the basic address for accessing the database).

Kaiser, Jocelyn. "Acid Rain's Dirty Business: Stealing Minerals from the Soil." Science 12 Apr. 1996: 198. Academic ASAP. InfoTrac. 18 Feb. 2000. <http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/plan_skyline>.

Kaiser, Jocelyn. "Acid Rain's Dirty Business: Stealing Minerals from the Soil." Science 12 Apr. 1996: 198. News Group File, Beyond Two Years. Lexis-Nexis. 18 Feb. 2000. <http://www.lexis.com/research>.

Kaiser, Jocelyn. "Acid Rain's Dirty Business: Stealing Minerals from the Soil." Science 12 Apr. 1996: 198. Periodical Abstracts PlusText. Dialog. 18 Feb. 2000. <http://www.dialogclassic.com/>.

Article for which only the abstract of the article is accessed from an online periodical database on the World Wide Web (such as InfoTrac databases or the Medline database on PubMed):

Article information as shown above for magazine, journal or newspaper. Abstract. Title of Database. Name of database service or publisher. Date of researcher's access. magazine, journal or newspaper. Title of Database. Name of database service or publisher. Date of researcher's access. <URL (electronic address)> (because the length of the URL may sometimes be excessively long, the cited URL may be either the complete address for the web page of the full-text article or the basic address for accessing the database).

LeGrand, E. K. "Potential Risk of Enhancing Survival of Infected Cells." Journal of the American Veterinary Medicine Association 213.12 (15 Dec. 1998): 1698. Abstract. Medline. PubMed. 18 Feb. 1998. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=9861953&form=6&db=m&Dopt=b>.

Article for which the full text is accessed from an online database service that is accessed directly--not on the Web (such as the dial-up version of the Lexis-Nexis database service or the text version of InfoTrac):

Article information as shown above for magazine, journal or newspaper. Title of Database. Name of database service. Date of researcher's access.

Kaiser, Jocelyn. "Acid Rain's Dirty Business: Stealing Minerals from the Soil." Science 12 Apr. 1996: 198. News Library/Curnws File. Lexis-Nexis. 18 Feb. 1998.

Article for which the full text is accessed from a CD-ROM periodical database (such as Newsbank S.F. Chronicle databases or Proquest New York Times databases):

Article information as shown above for magazine, journal or newspaper. Name of Database, if different from periodical title. CD-ROM. Name of software. Name of the Publisher. Date(s) of database coverage.

Morris, Joe. "Business Booming in Silicon Valley." New York Times 24 Nov. 1995: A10+. CD-ROM. Proquest. UMI. 1995.

Article from a Major Print Encyclopedia

Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). [If no author listed, begin with article title.] "Title of Article: Subtitle of Article (if any)." Title of Encyclopedia or Other Reference Source. Year of Publication ed.

Naisbitt, John, Thea K. Flaum and Oscar Handlin. "United States: Immigration." Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia. 1998 ed.

Article from a Non-Major Print Encyclopedia or Other Reference Source

Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). [If no author listed, begin with article title.] "Title of Article: Subtitle of Article (if any)." Title of Encyclopedia or Other Reference Source. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

"Immigration." Encyclopaedia of Social Issues. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1997.

Article from an Online Encyclopedia or Other Reference Source

Author's last name, First name Middle initial (if any). [If no author listed, begin with article title.] "Title of Article: Subtitle of Article (if any)." Title of Encyclopedia or Other Reference Source. Date of Publication or Latest Update. Publisher, Sponsoring Organization or Website name. Day Month Year of researcher's visit. <URL (web address) of the page>.

Naisbitt, John, Thea K. Flaum and Oscar Handlin. "United States: Immigration." Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2000. Britannica.com. 29 Mar. 2000 <http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/0/0,5716,136340+1,00.html>.

World Wide Web pages

Note: The MLA and the APA formats for electronic publications are not yet completely standardized.. Various websites provide specific information on how to cite information from the World Wide Web according to their current interpretations of official citation formats. The MLA official website, listed below, provides some information on citing electronic documents. Xia Li and Nancy Crane, librarians at the University of Vermont, who authored Electronic Styles: A Handbook for Citing Electronic Information maintain a website that is often used as a standard for electronic citation format and their site is also listed below.

• MLA Web site (http://www.mla.org/style/sources.htm)
• Li and Crane's site (http://www.uvm.edu/~ncrane/estyles/mla.html)
  

Author's last name (if an author is given), First name Middle initial (if any). "Title of the Page." (if no title is given, provide a description, such as Personal Home Page) Title of the Site. Day Month Year of publication or latest update. Name of any institution or organization sponsoring or associated with the website (if given and if different from the title of the site). Day Month Year of researcher's visit. <URL (web address) of the page>.

Note: If any of the above information is not given, leave the information out.

Brenner, Eric. "Ethical Issues: Citing Sources." LSCI 105: Computerized Research. 2 Dec. 1998. Skyline College. 10 Dec. 1998. <http://www.smcccd.cc.ca.us/smcccd/faculty/brenner/lsci105/citing.html>

• Citation Format for Books
• Citation Format for Articles from Periodicals (Magazines, Journals & Newspapers)
• Citation Format for Internet Documents

For more detailed explanations of how to use the APA format, you should consult the official APA style manual:

• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (REF BF 76.7 P83 1994)
  
  

Ask a librarian to show you this guide book.

Books with a single author:

Author's last name, First initial. Middle initial (if any). (Year of publication). Title. Place of publication: Publisher.

Gamson, J. R. (1994). Claims to fame: Celebrity in contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Books with two, three or more authors: 

First author's last name, First initial. Middle initial (if any), Second author's last name, First initial., Middle initial (if any), & Last author's last name, First initial. Middle initial (if any), (Year of publication). Title. Place of publication: Publisher.
Note: Invert all authors' names; give last names and initials for all authors, regardless of the number of authors.

Stewart, D. W., & Furse, D. H. (1986). Effective television advertising: A study of 1000 commercials. Lexington: Lexington Books.

Books with editor(s) rather than author(s):

Editor's last name, First initial. Middle initial (if any). (Ed. ). (Year of publication). Title. Place of publication: Publisher.

Baughman, C., (Ed. ). (1995). Women on ice: Feminist essays on the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan spectacle. New York: Routledge. 

Chapter in a book with an editor:

Author's last name, First initial. Middle initial (if any). (Year of publication). "Title of Chapter or Essay." In Editor's first initial. Middle initial (if any). Last name. (Ed.), Title of book. (pp. Page numbers for the chapter.). Publisher. Place of publication.

Fox, A. A. (1993). Split subjectivity in country music and honky-tonk discourse." In G. H. Lewis (Ed.), All that glitters: Country music in America, (pp.131-139). Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. 
 

Magazine article:

Author's last name, First initial. Middle initial (if any). (Year, Month Day (if given)). Title of article. Title of Magazine, volume number, Page numbers of article.

Bazell, R. (1993, March 15) Science and society: Growth industry. New Republic, 208, 13-14.

Frank, M. (1993, June) The wild, wild west. Architectural Digest, 50, 180-186, 199.

Journal article:

Author's last name, First initial. Middle initial (if any). (Year). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number (issue number, if each number of journal begins on page 1), Page numbers of article.

Babrow, A. S. (1997) Student motives for watching soap operas. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 31(3), 309-321.

Newspaper article:

Author's last name, First initial. Middle initial (if any). (Year, Month Day). Title of article. Title of Newspaper, pp. section and page number(s).

MacKenzie, B. (1993, November 4). Packin' the Heat. San Francisco Chronicle, pp. A16, A18.

Article for which the full text is accessed from an online periodical database (such as InfoTrac databases or Proquest Newspapers database):

Article information as shown above for magazine, journal or newspaper. Title of Database. Name of computer service. Retrieved Month Day, Year from the World Wide Web: URL (web address) of the page (because the length of the URL may sometimes be excessively long, the cited URL may be either the complete address for the web page of the full-text article or the basic address for accessing the database).


Jacobson, J. W., Mulick, J. A., & Schwartz, A. A. (1995). A history of facilitated communication: Science, pseudoscience, and antiscience: Science working group on facilitated communication. American Psychologist, 50, 750-765. Academic ASAP. InfoTrac. Retrieved January 27, 1999 from the World Wide Web: http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/plan_skyline.

Article for which the full text is accessed from a CD-ROM periodical database (such as Newsbank S.F. Chronicle databases or Proquest New York Times databases):

Article information as shown above for magazine, journal or newspaper. [CD-ROM]. Producer (optional). Name of Database, if different from periodical title. Name of software. Date(s) of database coverage.

Morris, J. (1995, November 24). Business Booming in Silicon Valley. New York Times pp. A10+. [CD-ROM]. Proquest. 1995.

World Wide Web pages

Note: The MLA and the APA formats for electronic publications are not yet completely standardized.. Various websites provide specific information on how to cite information from the World Wide Web according to their current interpretations of official citation formats. The APA official website, listed below, provides some information on citing electronic documents, but the format information provided by this site is quite limited. Xia Li and Nancy Crane, librarians at the University of Vermont, who authored Electronic Styles: A Handbook for Citing Electronic Information maintain a website that is often used as a standard for electronic citation format and their site is also listed below.

• APA Web site (http://www.apa.org/journals/webref.html)
• Li and Crane's site (http://www.uvm.edu/~ncrane/estyles/apa.html)
  

Author's last name, First initial. Middle initial (if any) -or- Institutional or Organizational Author. (Year, Month Day of last update). Title of web page [explanation of document type, except for online periodical articles]. City (if given): Name of any institution or organization sponsoring or associated with the website (if given). Retrieved Month Day, Year from the World Wide Web: URL (web address) of the page.

Note: If any of the above information is not given, leave the information out.

Brenner, E. (1998, December 2). Ethical Issues: Citing Sources [online course page]. San Bruno, CA: Skyline College. Retrieved December 10, 1998 from the World Wide Web: http://www.smcccd.cc.ca.us/smcccd/faculty/brenner/lsci105/citing.html.