When you find an article in Searchasaurus that has information that you want to use in your research paper,
you must cite the article in a separate bibliography page. This bibliography page appears at the end of your research paper
and contains an alphabetical list of books, magazines and other sources used in your research paper.
Citing an article is necessary because it gives proper credit to the author who wrote the article. You can also
cite an article using footnotes, which are placed at the bottom of the page (of your research paper)
that contains the information from an article. Accuracy, clarity, and consistency are the most important factors when citing information.
Modern Language Association (MLA) is an association that has developed standardized
methods of citing sources for research. They have also created guidelines for citing electronic sources (for example, information found on the World Wide Web). The bibliography is called "works cited." See the example below.
- Author’s Last Name, First Name. "Title of
work." Article's original source and
- publication date: page numbers. Product name. Date researcher visited site. <Electronic Address, or URL, of the source>.
Example:
- Lanken, Dane. "When the Earth Moves." Canadian Geographic March-April 1996:
- 66-73. MasterFILE Premier on-line. EBSCO Publishing. 15 Apr. 1998
<http://www.epnet.com/ehost/login.html>.
Instead of footnotes or endnotes, the author’s
last name and a shortened version of the title are place in parenthesis within
the body of the text.
Example: (Lanken, When the Earth Moves)
Commonly Used Terms:
Bibliography: An alphabetical list of
books and other sources used in writing a work. It is placed at the end of the
text. MLA guidelines call this "works cited".
Electronic Source: Information found
on computer software, computer and information services, and on on-line sites
such as: FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Sites, WWW, MOO’s, MUD’s, GOPHER
Sites, and e-mail.
Endnotes: Numbered citations in the
text that are keyed to citations placed at the end of the chapter, with complete
bibliographic listings at the end of the text.
Footnotes: Numbered citations in the
text that are keyed to citation notes place at the bottom of the page with bibliographic
listings at the end of the text.
Works Cited: Term used by MLA to refer
to bibliography or references.
