Real Fun: Style Guides & Citations

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Citation Stylez

You already know this, I’m sure, but style guides are more important than you think! A style guide dictates the kind of punctuation you use, and when, which spelling variations to use, formatting, and citation style. This post is going to focus on the aspect of style guides which is most immediately relevant to students - citation.

(You at this moment: "SCORE!")

In case you’ve never had to worry about citing things, a citation style is the format you use to list the sources from which you draw information that you’ve used in your own work. It’s not just the academic realm that has to worry about giving credit where credit is due, either; any piece of work that you’re putting forward as containing your own ideas that borrows information of another work needs to be formally acknowledged. This list of sources is often called a “works cited,” or a “bibliography.” (The creative arts generally get a pass here; if you’re starting your story with a pithy quote, for example, no one is expecting a full in-text citation; it’s enough to list the name of the quote’s author beside it.)

The importance of proper recognition and citation can’t be overstated. At best, bungling the style you’re meant to be using (especially in terms of citation) will lose you some marks if you’re a student and some credibility if you’re an academic (yikes). But the other side of the spectrum is more serious. Failing to properly recognise the source of a piece of information you’re using is called plagiarism, and it’s just a technical way of saying you cheated. And it’s wrong. I’ll say more about plagiarism another time, but know that it’s a dangerous mistake to make. So it’s pretty simple: don’t do it.

The three most common styles of citation are called Chicago, MLA, and APA (Turabian is also fairly common, and as I understand it, is almost exclusively used in academic contexts, but I’m not going to be addressing it here mostly because I don’t know that much about it). There are scores of other styles, but they all have pretty specific applications. They all require basically the same things — the title, the author(s)/other contributors, volume and issue numbers, publication date (at least the year), publication city, page numbers, and the type of source (though this is becoming less important in the digital age). The way they arrange this information is what distinguishes them from each other. Don’t worry if you can’t get all of that information for all of your sources, you just need to include as much information as possible so that your sources can be verified if necessary.

Below are the top three styles and their uses.

The Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago)

This style is most commonly used in the Humanities — history, literature, arts. Typically this style uses footnotes rather than in-text citations, but it can do both. The format varies depending on what kind of source you’re using, but I’ll give you the basic look of it, using a book as my example (though be aware that it changes a bit depending on what kind of medium you’re using).

For the bibliography/works cited listing:

Author surname, author first name. Title of book. City of publication: Publisher, Publication year.

Ex. Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. London: Harper Collins, 2013.

For the first footnote using this source:

Author first name and last name, Title of book, City of publication: Publisher, Publication year, Page numbers.

Ex. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, London: Harper Collins, 2013, 51-59.

For citations after the first one:

Author first name and last name, Title of the book, Page number(s).

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 51.

For full details and information on this style, you can find the official website here. You can also buy books detailing the style.

Now, take a minute here. Pace yourself. Get a glass of water and take a deep breath before you move on to...

Modern Language Association (MLA)

This is another style typically used in the arts and humanities. It’s really commonly used in literary studies, and it’s the only one I’ve ever used in English studies. This style typically uses in-text citation rather than footnotes, so that’s what I’ll be showing.

For the bibliography/works cited:

Author surname, Author first name. Title of Book. City of Publication: Publisher, Publication year. Medium of Publication.

Ex. Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. London: Harper Collins, 2013. Book.

First in-text citation:

(Author surname page number)

Ex. (Tolkien 51)

For citations after the first one:

(Page number)

Ex. (51)

Note: If you’ve switched sources — for example given a quote from Tolkien and then given a quote from C.S. Lewis, and you now are using another quote from Tolkien — you will have to include the author’s surname again, to make it clear which source you’re talking about. I’ll give a little example.

(Tolkien 51)

(Lewis 32)

(43) — again referring to the C.S. Lewis book

(Tolkien 59)

But what if you’re giving two sources by the same author?

(Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, Page number)

(Tolkien, The Two Towers, Page number)

(Page number) — again referring to Two Towers

(Tolkien

This is a great website for information on MLA. Again, this is also available in book format.

Check your pulse. Is your BPM within a safe range for a person of your age and fitness level? ONLY if the answer to that question is YES do I urge you to read on...(NOTE: I am not a medical professional, and nor is my advice a substitute for consultation with a medical professional. You proceed at your own risk.)

American Psychological Association (APA)

As you might deduce from the name, this style is typical of psychology papers and the social sciences in general. This style is a bit tricky to get used to because it has many rules, and it requires more structure than MLA or Chicago. I won’t go into great depth on this style because there’s a lot to be said and there are sources dedicated to delineating the style in exacting detail, but I’ll give you the highlights.

First, a paper using APA requires a title page, abstract, main body, and a reference list.

For the Reference List:

Author surname, Author first name initial, author middle name initial (Year of publication). Title of book. City of Publication: Publisher.

Ex. Tolkien, J. (2013). The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. London: Harper Collins.

*Note that there are some very particular rules about capitalisation and where, when, and how you use it in this style. Follow the link at the end of this section for more information.

In-text citation

(Author surname, Publication year, page number)

Ex. (Tolkien, 2013, p.51)

*Note that this in this style, if you include a “signal phrase” in your introduction to quotation, i.e. “Tolkien (2013) reports that, “He [Sauron] lacks the One Ring” (p. 51), you don’t have to follow it up with a full citation (i.e. “Tolkien (2013) reports that “He [Sauron] lacks the One Ring” (Tolkien, 2013, p.51).”) Also note that this is not an option with MLA or Chicago; you can use as many signal phrases as you like, you’ll still be expected to give a full citation.

For more information (and believe me, you’ll need it), click here. (Purdue OWL offers extensive information on the style, and has resources to help you learn to use it. In short, it will save your life if you need to learn to use APA.)

Whew. You made it.

Actually, citing can be a bit of a drag, especially after you've been up all night slaving away like your actual life actually depends on the completion of a paper and then you think you're finally finished but then you remember you have to do your citations and your bibliography and you think why, why is this happening to me, why couldn't this happen to someone else, someone who actually gets sleep once in a while, why is my prof a sadist, what is wrong with the whole world, is there even going to be life left for me after I finally finish, print, and submit this paper, what happened to my dreams? 

Been there.

But the aim of to make things fair, and until the it's incredibly important, and if you know what you’re doing, it doesn’t have to cramp your style!

Now go lie down somewhere safe and try to relax.