When you neglect to recognize the work of others and do not appropriately cite your sources, plagiarism can occur.
Plagiarism is defined by The Student Code for Midlands Technical College in this way:
"'Plagiarism' is defined as the appropriation of any other person’s work and the unacknowledged incorporation of that work in one’s own work." -p. 61 of the MTC Student Handbook
Plagiarism may be:
Check out MTC Library's Preventing Plagiarism Tutorial if you are interested in learning more about avoiding plagiarism in your work.
There are a number of web sites that will help you format your citations in APA, MLA, and Turabian style. However, you should always double-check the results you get as the results are not always completely accurate.
ZoteroBib helps you build a bibliography instantly from any computer or device, without creating an account or installing any software. Use it to help you seamlessly add sources and easily produce bibliographies.
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Generate your reference list and in-text citations in APA and MLA format. For free!
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When a professor requires you to cite your sources for a research assignment using APA, MLA, or Chicago/Turabian, you may have questions about what that really means. Citing or referencing your sources is a standardized way to inform your readers that specific information in your work is from an outside source so that the reader can find that source again.
A citation should include general information such as:
A citation is required:
Each of these instances requires an in-text citation.
You don't have to cite:
When in doubt, be safe and cite your source!
A complete citation or reference is made up of two parts:
Include an in-text citation when you refer to facts, summarize, paraphrase, or quote from another source.
An in-text citation is one half of a complete citation. It is the brief form of the reference that you include in the body of your work that gives enough information to uniquely identify the source in your reference list. For every in-text citation in your paper, there must be a corresponding entry in your reference list to make a complete citation.
The format of both the in-text citation and full reference entry depends on the citation style your professor asked you to use. See Popular Citation Styles used at Midlands Technical College.
It is important for writers to cite sources:
Citation generators allow writers to quickly generate citations. They use online forms to create a citation in various formats such as MLA, APA, Chicago, and more. Some even allow writers to construct entire bibliographies on the fly that can be imported into projects with a few clicks.
Used wisely, citation generators remove much of the tedium from the task of citations. Used unwisely, they can introduce systematic errors into citations that the writer isn’t even aware of.
Citation generators cannot think for you!
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACCURACY OF YOUR CITATIONS!
Material provided is only intended as a guide. If you professor's instructions vary from this guide, please follow the guidance of your professor.
This guide is intended as an introduction to the American Psychological Association (APA) Style for references and citations. Be sure to consult the Publication Manual of the APA or the APA Style website for detailed standards and procedures.
As a general rule, use APA style in psychology, education, and other social sciences.
Reference Quick Guide from APA Style
How-to Create References: Journal articles and other periodicals, Books and reference works, Edited book chapters and entries in reference works
When you reference another source use an in-text citation in the body of your paper (or in a table, figure, footnote, or appendix) to briefly identify the cited work. APA Style uses the author–date citation system, in which a brief in-text citation directs readers to a full reference list entry.
In-text citations may be parenthetical or narrative.
The author name and publication date appear in parentheses.
The author name is incorporated into the text as part of the sentence and the year follows in parentheses.
(American Psychological Association [APA], 2020)
(Author's Last Name, Year).
Example: (Spring, 2018)
If using...
A quotation is when you replicate another author's work or your own previously published work word-for-word. In APA style, a page number is necessary when using quotes.
Short Quotations
If a quotation is less than 40 words, it is considered a short quotation and should be integrated into your text and enclosed within double quotation marks. Any sentence punctuation goes after the closing parenthesis of the citation.
Block Quotations
If you're directly quoting more than 40 words, use a blockquote. Block quotes don't need quotation marks. Instead, indent the text 1/2" as a visual cue that you are citing. The parenthetical citation goes after the punctuation of the quote.
While research studies have established that socioeconomic status influences disease incidence, severity and access to healthcare, there has been relatively less study of the specific manner in which low SES influences receipt of quality care and consequent morbidity and mortality among patients with similar disease characteristics, particularly among those who have gained access to the healthcare system. (p. 1021)
Tip: Use direct quotes sparingly! Focus on summarizing the findings from multiple research studies. In the sciences and social sciences, only use the exact phrasing or argument of an individual when necessary.
Paraphrasing or summarizing the main findings or takeaways from a research article is the preferred method of citing sources in an APA paper. Always include the last name of the author(s) and the year of the article, so your reader can find the full citation in the reference list. Page numbers are not needed in APA style when paraphrasing or summarizing.
(APA, 2020)
In-text citations differ depending on the number of authors listed for a work, and if there is a group author.
The following table shows the basic in-text citation styles:
Parenthetical citation | Narrative citation | |
---|---|---|
One author |
(Trakhtenberg, 2008) |
Trakhtenberg (2008) |
Two authors |
(McGuigan & Lehrer, 2007) |
McGuigan & Lehrer (2007) |
Three or more authors |
(Scherwitz et al., 2005) |
Scherwitz et al. (2005) |
Group author with abbreviation First citation * Subsequent citations |
(National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 2008) (NASW, 2008) |
National Association of Social Workers (NASW, 2008) NASW (2020) |
Group author without abbreviation |
(Freebird Meditations, 2012) |
Freebird Meditations (2012) |
*State the acronym for a group author only once in the text, using either the parenthetical or the narrative format. Afterward, use the abbreviation for all mentions of the group in the text. Copyright 2020 by the American Psychological Association.
Include the complete citation at the end of your paper in a references section. References are organized by the author's last name in alphabetic (A-Z) order. Use an hanging indent to separate each list item.
References for all works follow the pattern of author, date, title, and source.
Additionally, references follow one of two format patterns.
Works that stand alone use the italic title format pattern.
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date). Title of the work. Source where you can retrieve the work. URL or DOI if available
Works that are part of a greater whole use the italic source format pattern.
Author, A. A. (Publication Date). Title of the work. Source where you can retrieve the work. DOI or URL if available
Each document type in the Publication Manual (e.g., journal article, book, webpage) uses only one format pattern.
If citing a...
Ashing‐Giwa, K. T., Padilla, G., Tejero, J., Kraemer, J., Wright, K., Coscarelli, A., Clayton, S., Williams, I., & Hills, D. (2004). Understanding the breast cancer experience of women: A qualitative study of African American, Asian American, Latina and Caucasian cancer survivors. Psycho‐Oncology, 13(6), 408-428. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.750
Note: Use this format to cite articles from online newspapers (i.e. New York Times, Washington Post). Treat articles from online news sites (i.e. NPR, CNN) like a webpage.
Shine, T. M. (2021, June 29). The Great American Reboot. The Washington Post Magazine. https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/06/29/i-went-las-vegas-test-whether-i-was-really-ready-life-other-side-pandemic/?itid=sf_lifestyle-magazine
Schmidt, N. A., & Brown, J. M. (2017). Evidence-based practice for nurses: Appraisal and application of research (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
McCormack, B., McCance, T., & Maben, J. (2013). Outcome evaluation in the development of person-centred practice. In B. McCormack, K. Manley, & A. Titchen (Eds.), Practice development in nursing and healthcare (pp. 190-211). John Wiley & Sons.
Kennedy, M. (2018, October 15). To prevent wildfires, PG&E pre-emptively cuts power to thousands in California. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2018/10/15/657468903/to-prevent-wildfires-pg-e-preemptively-cuts-power-to-thousands-in-california
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Preventing HPV-associated cancers. https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/basic_info/prevention.htm/
Los Angeles County Deptartment of Public Health. (2017, January). Key indicators of health by service planning area. http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/ha/
Valentin, E. R. (2019, Summer). Narcissism predicted by Snapchat selfie sharing, filter usage, and editing [Master's thesis, California State University Dominguez Hills]. CSU ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/concern/theses/3197xm925?locale=en
Check out more examples for citing dissertations and theses on the APA Style site.
For information about citing images visit Finding and Using Image Resources.
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