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ENG104: Introduction to Research Writing: Citations

All those citation styles!!

The library has created a guide with citation examples and paper formatting tips for APA and MLA.

But what about this weird source??

Annotated Bibliography

An image titled Writing your Annotated Bibliography. Below the title is the following sentence: An annotated bibliography is a list of sources you intend to use in your research project, including a description of each source. Below this the image is split into two sections labeled Citation and Annotation. Under citation is the following text: Citation in APA or MLA format. Not sure which one to use? Check your assignment sheet or ask your instructor. Under the section annotation is the definition: A description of your source, which may include one or more of the following: Below that are 3 subsections: 1. summary of the article. 2 analysis of the source, and 3. relevance to the research. Under Summary of the article is the following text: Briefly describe the main point of the article. What was the argument? If it was a research study, what was the objective and what were the results? How would you describe the article to someone who had never read it? Below 2. Analysis of the source reads "Evaluate the reliability of the resource. Is the author an authority on this topic? What is the purpose of the source? Is there bias in the article? How does it compare with your course content? Where did the evidence come from? Below 3. Relevance to the Research is the following text: Reflect on how you will use this source in your research. How does it answer your research question? How does it help you shape your argument? Does it provide background information, evidence, arguments, or methodologies? At the very bottom of the image it says: Depending on the project your annotation may include one or more of these, so make sure to follow the instructions for the assignment or ask your instructor.

What an APA citation should look like?

An image titled Anatomy of a citation. Below it is a color coded APA citation for a journal article. It is formatted with a hanging indent. The order of pieces is author, year, article title, journal title, volume/issue, and pages.
A red colored slide labeled author. Tips for formatting the author section of the citation are in boxes. Next to them are the sample formatted correctly. The tips include 1. Use only the last name and initials. To the left it says Naraine, M.L. 2. If there are more than one author, always leave them in the order they were listed. That order is significant to the authors. To the right, you see 3 authors listed as Huiszoon, P., Martinent, G., & Bodet, G. There are commas between each author's first initial, and an ampersand before the last author's last name. 3. You need to list all authors if there are 20 or less. If there are more than 20 you get to format it differently. To the left it says List the first 19 authors, then an ellipses and the last author ... Nas, K.
An orange colored slide labeled year. There are 3 tips for formatting the year portion of the citation. 1. Put the year in parentheses with a period afterwards. To the left you see (2019). 2. Use only the year, even if the journal gives you a month or season. To the right, the word Spring is crossed out in front of 2019 3. Use the date published not the date submitted or the date accepted. The peer review process can take a while. Use the correct date. To the left, an image of dates received and accepted are crossed out.
A yellow colored slide titled Article title. Two tips for formatting article titles are given. 1. Only capitalize the first word of the title of the article, and any proper nouns or acronyms. End with a period. 2. Use the whole title, including the subtitle after the colon. Capitalize the first word of the subtitle too. There are two titles written out using these rules.
A green colored slide titled journal title. Three tips for formatting the journal title are listed in boxes. 1. Italicize the entire name of the journal Follow with a comma. To the left you see Sports Marketing Quarterly, in italics. 2. Capitalize all words, except unimportant ones like of, and, an the, etc. To the right you see Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation (with everything capitalized except of & and.) 3. Use the full title. Some journals abbreviate their title. Google them to figure out the full title. To the left you see a scan of a journal title abbreviated J Can Chiropr Assoc crossed out. Below it is Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association.
A blue colored slide titled Volume/issue. Two tips for formatting the volume and issue are in blue boxes. 1. Italicize the volume, but not the issue. Put the issue number in parentheses, and follow it with a comma. If there is no issue number given, just use the volume. To the left you see 28(4), and the 28 is in italics. 2. Finding the volume and issue on a print article might be tricky. Here are few examples of what they might look like. To the right there are images showing the volume and issue being labeled as vol. and nos. or Volume and Number, or simply a number in bold.
A purple colored slide is labeled page numbers. 2 purple boxes have tips to format page numbers. 1. Include the entire page run, and end with a period. To the left you see 222-223. 2. Some online articles don't use pages numbers since they never exist in print. If that's the case, simply put a period after the volume and issue.

How to put a citation together yourself (or improve the one you get from the database)!