CITATION GUIDE FOR SENIOR PROJECT

CITATION GUIDE FOR SENIOR PROJECT

Dear students taking IGST 40099 Senior Project,

I want to draw your attention to an on-going issue which students must address to succeed in the writing assignments of the Course.  Given that the assignments concern a research project, students must learn to properly document their sources.  To aid your understanding how to cite your research sources properly, I want to draw your attention to the Purdue Online Writing Lab website at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/.  I will allow students to use at their discretion “footnotes” or “parenthetical in-line” citation methods.  Further you are free to choose from any academically established Manual of Style.  The two most popular are the MLA Style and the Chicago Manual of Style.  What is important is that you use the style guide consistently and correctly.

Where most students run into a problem concerns the expectation that the citation be located in the text precisely where the source work is quoted or paraphrased, of where in the student’s paper the source influenced your thinking and writing.  When in doubt, CITE YOUR SOURCE.  And further, when you cite, please note the following.

If you are citing a work which is published as a book or article, and it has page numbers, you must include the page number or numbers of the material quoted or referred to where it occurs in the source work.   So, if I were quoting from Paul Ricoeur’s book Interpretation Theory, from say page 43, I would need to provide a citation which read, “Ricoeur, p 43.”  Now, if I list in the bibliography two or more works written by Paul Ricoeur that I use in my paper, then I would need to differentiate which text by Ricoeur I am referencing.  And, so long as none of the works he authored that I am using were published in the same year, I could note the specific work Interpretation Theory in the following way in the body of the text: “Ricoeur, 1976: p 43”.  If you do not provide the page number or the publishing date, your citation is incomplete, and I will return submitted work to you to be corrected.

Now, if you are citing a work which does not include page numbers, a common practice for on-line works, then you are excused from providing a page number.  However, in the Bibliography you must include along with the standard data of author, title, etc., the web address of the work that you are citing.  And you must include in the bibliography the date you accessed the web address and drew out your quotation.

Most students have found that using in line parenthetical citations rather than footnotes or endnotes is easier.  Thus using the example above, I might write that Paul Ricoeur argues … and then cite the course prior to the period ending the sentence (Ricoeur, 1976: p 43).

Now there may be other complications, but these two are the sort of errors which I find are commonly made by students in their work on the senior project.  If you find yourself stumped with how to cite, review the OWL website at Purdue University, seek help with the writing commons.  And of course, contact me.  Remember, your documenting your sources is evidence that you have been conducting research.  That means that you are doing the work.  And even if you give me too much information regarding your source, that is better than not providing me adequate information or no information at all.