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Criminology

Citation Basics

What are citations?

  • A citation is short way to uniquely identify a published work

What do citations include? 

  • A citation consists of all standard bibliographic elements and includes all information necessary to identify a work.
  • i.e. Title, author, publication date, location, volume, issue, page numbers, etc. 

Why do we cite sources? 

  • To give credit to other researchers and to acknowledge their ideas
  • To avoid plagiarism
  • To provide a trail so others can consult the materials you've used / so they can do further reading
  • To provide evidence of your own research 

What should you cite?

  • Facts, figures, ideas, or other information that is not common knowledge 
  • Ideas, words, theories, or exact language that another person used
  • Images, photos, artwork, sculptures, media (i.e. videos, movies, television, podcasts, etc.)

MLA Formatting & Citations (8th edition)

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MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities.

If you are asked to use MLA format, be sure to consult a copy of MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, located in McQuade Library's reference collection: 

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is the gold standard for online tools to teach you about citations and formatting.

From the website you can learn to:

  • Format in-text, and full bibliographical citations for a variety of source types
  • Follow formatting and style guidelines for a variety of assignments

In your citation, the elements should be listed in the following order:

  1. Author.
  2. Title of source.
  3. Title of container,
  4. Other contributors,
  5. Version,
  6. Number,
  7. Publisher,
  8. Publication date,
  9. Location.

Each element should be followed by the corresponding punctuation mark shown above.

The general format for any MLA citation:

  • Author. Title. Title of container (do not list container for standalone books, e.g. novels), Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages, paragraphs URL or DOI). 2nd container’s title, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location, Date of Access (if applicable).
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