research documentation styles

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13.1 Formatting a Research Paper

Learning objectives.

• Identify the major components of a research paper written using American Psychological Association (APA) style.
• Apply general APA style and formatting conventions in a research paper.

In this chapter, you will learn how to use APA style , the documentation and formatting style followed by the American Psychological Association, as well as MLA style , from the Modern Language Association. There are a few major formatting styles used in academic texts, including AMA, Chicago, and Turabian:

• AMA (American Medical Association) for medicine, health, and biological sciences
• APA (American Psychological Association) for education, psychology, and the social sciences
• Chicago—a common style used in everyday publications like magazines, newspapers, and books
• MLA (Modern Language Association) for English, literature, arts, and humanities
• Turabian—another common style designed for its universal application across all subjects and disciplines

While all the formatting and citation styles have their own use and applications, in this chapter we focus our attention on the two styles you are most likely to use in your academic studies: APA and MLA.

If you find that the rules of proper source documentation are difficult to keep straight, you are not alone. Writing a good research paper is, in and of itself, a major intellectual challenge. Having to follow detailed citation and formatting guidelines as well may seem like just one more task to add to an already-too-long list of requirements.

Following these guidelines, however, serves several important purposes. First, it signals to your readers that your paper should be taken seriously as a student’s contribution to a given academic or professional field; it is the literary equivalent of wearing a tailored suit to a job interview. Second, it shows that you respect other people’s work enough to give them proper credit for it. Finally, it helps your reader find additional materials if he or she wishes to learn more about your topic.

Furthermore, producing a letter-perfect APA-style paper need not be burdensome. Yes, it requires careful attention to detail. However, you can simplify the process if you keep these broad guidelines in mind:

• Work ahead whenever you can. Chapter 11 “Writing from Research: What Will I Learn?” includes tips for keeping track of your sources early in the research process, which will save time later on.
• Get it right the first time. Apply APA guidelines as you write, so you will not have much to correct during the editing stage. Again, putting in a little extra time early on can save time later.
• Use the resources available to you. In addition to the guidelines provided in this chapter, you may wish to consult the APA website at http://www.apa.org or the Purdue University Online Writing lab at http://owl.english.purdue.edu , which regularly updates its online style guidelines.

General Formatting Guidelines

This chapter provides detailed guidelines for using the citation and formatting conventions developed by the American Psychological Association, or APA. Writers in disciplines as diverse as astrophysics, biology, psychology, and education follow APA style. The major components of a paper written in APA style are listed in the following box.

These are the major components of an APA-style paper:

Body, which includes the following:

• Headings and, if necessary, subheadings to organize the content
• In-text citations of research sources
• References page

All these components must be saved in one document, not as separate documents.

The title page of your paper includes the following information:

• Title of the paper
• Author’s name
• Name of the institution with which the author is affiliated
• Header at the top of the page with the paper title (in capital letters) and the page number (If the title is lengthy, you may use a shortened form of it in the header.)

List the first three elements in the order given in the previous list, centered about one third of the way down from the top of the page. Use the headers and footers tool of your word-processing program to add the header, with the title text at the left and the page number in the upper-right corner. Your title page should look like the following example.

The next page of your paper provides an abstract , or brief summary of your findings. An abstract does not need to be provided in every paper, but an abstract should be used in papers that include a hypothesis. A good abstract is concise—about one hundred fifty to two hundred fifty words—and is written in an objective, impersonal style. Your writing voice will not be as apparent here as in the body of your paper. When writing the abstract, take a just-the-facts approach, and summarize your research question and your findings in a few sentences.

In Chapter 12 “Writing a Research Paper” , you read a paper written by a student named Jorge, who researched the effectiveness of low-carbohydrate diets. Read Jorge’s abstract. Note how it sums up the major ideas in his paper without going into excessive detail.

Write an abstract summarizing your paper. Briefly introduce the topic, state your findings, and sum up what conclusions you can draw from your research. Use the word count feature of your word-processing program to make sure your abstract does not exceed one hundred fifty words.

Depending on your field of study, you may sometimes write research papers that present extensive primary research, such as your own experiment or survey. In your abstract, summarize your research question and your findings, and briefly indicate how your study relates to prior research in the field.

Margins, Pagination, and Headings

APA style requirements also address specific formatting concerns, such as margins, pagination, and heading styles, within the body of the paper. Review the following APA guidelines.

Use these general guidelines to format the paper:

• Set the top, bottom, and side margins of your paper at 1 inch.
• Use double-spaced text throughout your paper.
• Use a standard font, such as Times New Roman or Arial, in a legible size (10- to 12-point).
• Use continuous pagination throughout the paper, including the title page and the references section. Page numbers appear flush right within your header.
• Section headings and subsection headings within the body of your paper use different types of formatting depending on the level of information you are presenting. Additional details from Jorge’s paper are provided.

Begin formatting the final draft of your paper according to APA guidelines. You may work with an existing document or set up a new document if you choose. Include the following:

• Your title page
• The abstract you created in Note 13.8 “Exercise 1”
• Correct headers and page numbers for your title page and abstract

APA style uses section headings to organize information, making it easy for the reader to follow the writer’s train of thought and to know immediately what major topics are covered. Depending on the length and complexity of the paper, its major sections may also be divided into subsections, sub-subsections, and so on. These smaller sections, in turn, use different heading styles to indicate different levels of information. In essence, you are using headings to create a hierarchy of information.

The following heading styles used in APA formatting are listed in order of greatest to least importance:

• Section headings use centered, boldface type. Headings use title case, with important words in the heading capitalized.
• Subsection headings use left-aligned, boldface type. Headings use title case.
• The third level uses left-aligned, indented, boldface type. Headings use a capital letter only for the first word, and they end in a period.
• The fourth level follows the same style used for the previous level, but the headings are boldfaced and italicized.
• The fifth level follows the same style used for the previous level, but the headings are italicized and not boldfaced.

Visually, the hierarchy of information is organized as indicated in Table 13.1 “Section Headings” .

Table 13.1 Section Headings

A college research paper may not use all the heading levels shown in Table 13.1 “Section Headings” , but you are likely to encounter them in academic journal articles that use APA style. For a brief paper, you may find that level 1 headings suffice. Longer or more complex papers may need level 2 headings or other lower-level headings to organize information clearly. Use your outline to craft your major section headings and determine whether any subtopics are substantial enough to require additional levels of headings.

Working with the document you developed in Note 13.11 “Exercise 2” , begin setting up the heading structure of the final draft of your research paper according to APA guidelines. Include your title and at least two to three major section headings, and follow the formatting guidelines provided above. If your major sections should be broken into subsections, add those headings as well. Use your outline to help you.

Because Jorge used only level 1 headings, his Exercise 3 would look like the following:

Citation Guidelines

In-text citations.

Throughout the body of your paper, include a citation whenever you quote or paraphrase material from your research sources. As you learned in Chapter 11 “Writing from Research: What Will I Learn?” , the purpose of citations is twofold: to give credit to others for their ideas and to allow your reader to follow up and learn more about the topic if desired. Your in-text citations provide basic information about your source; each source you cite will have a longer entry in the references section that provides more detailed information.

In-text citations must provide the name of the author or authors and the year the source was published. (When a given source does not list an individual author, you may provide the source title or the name of the organization that published the material instead.) When directly quoting a source, it is also required that you include the page number where the quote appears in your citation.

This information may be included within the sentence or in a parenthetical reference at the end of the sentence, as in these examples.

Epstein (2010) points out that “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive” (p. 137).

Here, the writer names the source author when introducing the quote and provides the publication date in parentheses after the author’s name. The page number appears in parentheses after the closing quotation marks and before the period that ends the sentence.

Addiction researchers caution that “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive” (Epstein, 2010, p. 137).

Here, the writer provides a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence that includes the author’s name, the year of publication, and the page number separated by commas. Again, the parenthetical citation is placed after the closing quotation marks and before the period at the end of the sentence.

As noted in the book Junk Food, Junk Science (Epstein, 2010, p. 137), “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive.”

Here, the writer chose to mention the source title in the sentence (an optional piece of information to include) and followed the title with a parenthetical citation. Note that the parenthetical citation is placed before the comma that signals the end of the introductory phrase.

David Epstein’s book Junk Food, Junk Science (2010) pointed out that “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive” (p. 137).

Another variation is to introduce the author and the source title in your sentence and include the publication date and page number in parentheses within the sentence or at the end of the sentence. As long as you have included the essential information, you can choose the option that works best for that particular sentence and source.

Citing a book with a single author is usually a straightforward task. Of course, your research may require that you cite many other types of sources, such as books or articles with more than one author or sources with no individual author listed. You may also need to cite sources available in both print and online and nonprint sources, such as websites and personal interviews. Chapter 13 “APA and MLA Documentation and Formatting” , Section 13.2 “Citing and Referencing Techniques” and Section 13.3 “Creating a References Section” provide extensive guidelines for citing a variety of source types.

Writing at Work

APA is just one of several different styles with its own guidelines for documentation, formatting, and language usage. Depending on your field of interest, you may be exposed to additional styles, such as the following:

• MLA style. Determined by the Modern Languages Association and used for papers in literature, languages, and other disciplines in the humanities.
• Chicago style. Outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style and sometimes used for papers in the humanities and the sciences; many professional organizations use this style for publications as well.
• Associated Press (AP) style. Used by professional journalists.

References List

The brief citations included in the body of your paper correspond to the more detailed citations provided at the end of the paper in the references section. In-text citations provide basic information—the author’s name, the publication date, and the page number if necessary—while the references section provides more extensive bibliographical information. Again, this information allows your reader to follow up on the sources you cited and do additional reading about the topic if desired.

The specific format of entries in the list of references varies slightly for different source types, but the entries generally include the following information:

• The name(s) of the author(s) or institution that wrote the source
• The year of publication and, where applicable, the exact date of publication
• The full title of the source
• For books, the city of publication
• For articles or essays, the name of the periodical or book in which the article or essay appears
• For magazine and journal articles, the volume number, issue number, and pages where the article appears
• For sources on the web, the URL where the source is located

The references page is double spaced and lists entries in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. If an entry continues for more than one line, the second line and each subsequent line are indented five spaces. Review the following example. ( Chapter 13 “APA and MLA Documentation and Formatting” , Section 13.3 “Creating a References Section” provides extensive guidelines for formatting reference entries for different types of sources.)

In APA style, book and article titles are formatted in sentence case, not title case. Sentence case means that only the first word is capitalized, along with any proper nouns.

Key Takeaways

• Following proper citation and formatting guidelines helps writers ensure that their work will be taken seriously, give proper credit to other authors for their work, and provide valuable information to readers.
• Working ahead and taking care to cite sources correctly the first time are ways writers can save time during the editing stage of writing a research paper.
• APA papers usually include an abstract that concisely summarizes the paper.
• APA papers use a specific headings structure to provide a clear hierarchy of information.
• In APA papers, in-text citations usually include the name(s) of the author(s) and the year of publication.
• In-text citations correspond to entries in the references section, which provide detailed bibliographical information about a source.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Chapter 22 Appendix B: A Guide to Research and Documentation

Research documentation guidelines.

This appendix provides general guidelines for documenting researched information. See Chapter 7 "Researching" for more on the research process.

22.1 Choosing a Documentation Format

As a rule, your assignments requiring research will specify a documentation format. If you are free to use the style of your choice, you can choose any format you want as long as you are consistent, but you should know that certain disciplines tend to use specific documentation styles:

• business and social sciences: American Psychological Association (APA)
• natural and applied sciences: Council of Science Editors (CSE)
• humanities: Modern Language Association (MLA) or the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS)

For the purposes of this appendix, we will confine ourselves to the three documentation formats that will be the most common in your undergraduate courses: the style manuals from APA and MLA, as well as CMS. (Other formats are listed at the end of this appendix. Also, note this appendix explains the “Notes-Bibliography” system of CMS, used more often in history, the arts, and humanities, rather than the “Author-Date” system, used in the sciences and social sciences.)

These three systems of documentation have been refined over many generations so that academics can rely on certain standards of attribution when they cite each other’s work and when their work is cited. When you enter into an academic conversation in a given discipline, it’s imperative that you play by its rules. It’s true that popular, nonacademic forms of attribution exist. Making a link to another website in a blog or a Twitter post works quite well, but in an academic context, such a form of attribution is not sufficient. Of course it should go without saying that stealing someone else’s words or borrowing them without attribution, whether you do it casually on the web or in an academic context, is simply wrong.

22.2 Integrating Sources

Your goal within a research paper is to integrate other sources smoothly into your paper to support the points you are making. As long as you give proper credit, you can ethically reference anyone else’s work. You should not, however, create a paper that is made up of one reference after another without any of your input. You should also avoid using half-page or whole-page quotations. Make sure to write enough of your material so that your sources are integrated into your work rather than making up the bulk of your paper.

Think of yourself as a kind of museum docent or tour guide when you are integrating sources into your work. You’ll usually want to take some time to set up your use of a source by placing it in a proper context. That’s why in most cases, before you even launch into quotation, paraphrase, or summary, you will have probably already used what’s called a “signal phrase” that identifies the author of the source, and often the specific publication (whether web or print) from which it is taken. After your use of the source, you’ll need to follow up with analysis and commentary on how you think it fits into the larger context of your argument.

22.3 Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

When you quote another writer’s exact words, you will have to identify the page number within the source where you found the quotation or the paragraph number if the source is taken from an online format or database that does not indicate the original print pagination. Note that only APA allows the use of “p.” or “pp.”

Table 22.1 Citing Quotations

Paraphrased and summarized text is cited within text in the same way that quoted material is cited except that quotations are not used. In APA style, you do not need to include page numbers in this case, but MLA and CMS, on the other hand, do still require page numbers, when they are available.

Table 22.2 Citing Paraphrased or Summarized Text

22.4 Formatting In-Text References

When you use others’ ideas, you have a variety of options for integrating these sources into your text. The main requirement is that you make it clear within your in-text reference that the information is not yours and that you clearly indicate where you got the idea. The following box shows some alternate phrases for signaling that the ideas you are using belong to another writer. Using a variety of wording makes writing more interesting. Note: Past tense is used in these examples. You may elect to use present tense (“writes”) or past perfect tense (“has written”), but keep your tense use consistent.

Phrases That Signal an Idea Belongs to Another Writer (Shown in APA style)

• According to Starr (2010)…
• Acknowledging that…
• Starr (2010) stated…
• As Starr (2010) noted…
• In 2010, Starr reported…
• In the words of Starr (2010)…
• It is obvious, according to Starr (2010), that…
• Starr (2010) argued that…
• Starr (2010) disagreed when she said…
• Starr (2010) emphasized the importance of…
• Starr (2010) suggested…
• Starr observed in 2010 that…
• Technology specialist, Linda Starr, claimed that…(2010).
• …indicated Starr (2010).
• …wrote Starr (2010)

Table 22.3 "Integrating Sources (Summarized or Paraphrased Ideas)" shows some actual examples of integrating sources within the guidelines of the three most common documentation formats. You should weave the cited details in with your ideas.

Table 22.3 Integrating Sources (Summarized or Paraphrased Ideas)

Table 22.4 Two Authors

Table 22.5 Multiple Authors

Table 22.6 Personal Communication

22.5 Developing a List of Sources

This appendix provides a general overview of some of the most common documentation guidelines for different types of sources. For situations not described in this appendix, such as types of sources not described in this chapter or situations where you elect to use footnotes or endnotes in addition to in-text, parenthetical citations, check the complete guidelines for the style you are using:

• APA: http://www.apastyle.org
• MLA: http://www.mla.org
• CMS: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org

Some general online searches, especially those conducted on your library databases, are also likely to generate guidelines for a variety of documentation styles. Look for an opportunity to click on a “citation” or “documentation” icon, or ask a member of your college library staff for guidance. You can even get help through the word processing program you typically use. Microsoft Word, for instance, has an entire tab on the taskbar devoted to managing and documenting sources in all three of the styles featured here. Also, don’t forget the tip from Chapter 7 "Researching" about the free resources that abound on the web from various online writing labs (OWLs) managed by writing programs at colleges and universities across the country.

Each different documentation style has its own set of guidelines for creating a list of references at the end of the essay (called “works cited” in MLA, “references” in APA, and “bibliography” in CMS). This section includes citations for the sources included in other parts of this appendix. For additional citation styles, consult complete citation guidelines for the style you are using.

Source lists should always be in alphabetical order by the first word of each reference, and you should use hanging indentation (with the first line of each reference flush with the margin and subsequent lines indented one-half inch). Here are some of the most common types of entries you will be using for your references at the end of your research essays. These lists are by no means exhaustive, but you will note from the examples some of the most important differences in conventions of punctuation, font, and the exact content of each style.

Table 22.7 APA References

Table 22.8 MLA Works Cited

Table 22.9 CMS Bibliography

22.6 Using Other Formats

Although APA, MLA, and Chicago are the most widely used documentation styles, many other styles are used in specific situations. Some of these other styles are listed in Table 22.10 "Other Documentation Formats" . You can find more about them by searching online.

Table 22.10 Other Documentation Formats

Council of Science Editors Documentation Style

The Council of Science Editors (CSE) offers three systems of documentation. In all three systems, a reference list at the end of the paper provides all the information your reader needs to track down your sources. In-text references in your sentences show your reader which sources support the claims and information of that sentence.

A quick overview of CSE styles

The systems differ in the details of how they format in-text references and how they organize the reference list. For more information about each system, click on the appropriate link below:

• In the citation-name system, number your sources alphabetically by each author’s last name in the reference list at the end of your paper. In the sentences of your paper, cite these sources using the number from the reference list. This means that the in-text citation 1 refers to the first source in your alphabetical list.

Example from Charkowski (2012) :Despite this, there has been significant progress in modeling gene regulation in SRE, including mathematical models of virulence 75 and examination of gene expression at the single cell level 87,158,159,166.

• In the citation-sequence system, number your sources in the reference list at the end of the paper by the order in which you refer to them in your paper. In the sentences of your paper, cite these sources using the number from the reference list. This means that the in-text citation 1 refers to the first source mentioned in your text.

Example from Newbury (2013) :These interactions have been implicated in many systems, including small molecules 4, peptides 5, proteins 6, peptoids 7, and nucleic acids 8.

• In the name-year system, list (but do not number) your sources alphabetically in the reference list at the end of your paper. In the sentences of your paper, cite these sources by giving the author’s last name and year of publication in parentheses.

Example from Wattiaux (2005) :Milk urea nitrogen can be used as an indicator of the adequacy of protein and the balance between energy and protein in lactating dairy cow diets (Broderick and Clayton 1997; Wattiaux and Karg 2004a) and as a predictor of urinary nitrogen excretion (Kauffman and St Pierre 2001; Kohn et al. 2002; Wattiaux and Karg 2004b).

For a class paper, check to see if your instructor prefers one of these systems. For a journal article, check the journal’s instructions to authors to find out which system to use.

For a full description of these systems and the philosophy behind them, consult Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers , the Seventh Edition (2006) of the CSE manual.

Cite References in Your Paper

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CSE Table of Contents

Citation-Sequence and Citation-Name

An Overview of Documentation Systems

Documentation systems are tools by which one participant in an academic discipline, or field of study, acknowledges the work of another. Using one is much more than a professional courtesy: it is a requirement.

This guide covers the reasons for this requirement, the kinds of sources that must be documented, as well as explanations and examples of the different formatting rules governing the five systems most frequently used in the academic and professional world.

Overview: Documentation Systems

Research writing is how an academic community exchanges ideas and shares the results of their work. You may hear this community called a "discourse community". That's because its members belong to a specific discipline, like anthropology, Victorian literature or physics. The ongoing conversation between members of these communities helps further the work of individual contributors.

Publishing is one of the ways in which these communities talk to each other: text-books, articles in professional journals and conference proceedings, for example, are part of the conversation. Collectively, they constitute a library of sources upon which any researcher may draw. To "borrow" from this library, participants in the conversation must document their use of these sources.

Available to meet this requirement are a variety of documentation systems designed to fit the specific needs of different academic disciplines. In the humanities, for instance, the Modern Language Association (MLA) style is preferred, while in the social and natural sciences there is a larger tendency toward the American Psychological Association (APA) style.

There are no hard and fast rules, however. The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is often used in both the humanities and the social sciences. In the "hard sciences" preferences run more to the Council of Biology Editors (CBE) style and the Civil Engineering Citation Guide (CEC) . Your instructors will advise you on which to use.

Why Sources are Documented

The most obvious reason for documenting your sources is to avoid plagiarism and its consequences. There are other reasons as well, all related to preserving the integrity of academic inquiry, the process involved and the results produced.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Most students are aware of the general definition of plagiarism: intentionally representing another person's ideas, findings, statistics, language, sentence structure, etc. as their own.

There is more to it, however, than handing in a roommate's composition or pulling a paper off the Internet. In fact, many incidences of plagiarism are unintentional and quite often the result of carelessness or simple ignorance regarding academic rules.

Deliberate or not, plagiarism is academic dishonesty. The consequences are significant: failure or expulsion from an academic institution for students; loss of credibility and severely damaged reputations for professionals.

The importance of understanding and avoiding plagiarism cannot be overstated.

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

Acknowledging sources is an ironclad rule in the world of academic research. Not only are intellectual property rights at stake, but the simple notion of doing the right thing, as well.

Individuals who have pursued a specific line of inquiry and have made a significant contribution to their field of study deserve recognition; it's their due. More importantly, giving credit eliminates suspicion of having taken credit where credit isn't due.

Keeping "who said what" organized allows for an orderly presentation of ideas. Accurate documentation ensures a tangible background of verifiable sources against which the trustworthiness of someone's findings or conclusions can be measured. It also creates the foundation upon which future inquiry and research can be built.

Building Your Own Credibility

At the core of winning over an audience is the ability to present an argument. Convincing others that your way of thinking is worthy can be very challenging and it will be an uphill battle if you build the foundation of your argument on poorly documented research. At stake is your credibility.

Citing and documenting trustworthy sources in your work will bolster the notion that what you have to say is credible and trustworthy. It will help convince your audience that you know what you talking about, that you are familiar with the historical context of your topic and that your contribution or perspective has value.

It also provides the information needed for others with similar interests to test your findings. Successful duplication of your research serves to strengthen your thesis and validate your conclusions: a desirable result. Improperly documenting your sources will hinder other researchers from achieving this goal.

Creating Context

It's important to draw a clear line between your own ideas and those of others. Citing and documenting your sources draws that line. It also describes the contextual framework, or "context", in which you wish your ideas, arguments and observations to be viewed; the larger conversation in which it should be placed.

When there are multiple sources and varying viewpoints in a discourse community's conversation, the contextual frame assigns intellectual and academic responsibility to the contributing authors. This is particularly important when forming an opposing argument or attempting to disprove the conclusions of someone else.

Proper documentation separates the various points-of-view in the source material and helps the reader see the path you followed in developing arguments that support your conclusions.

What Sources are Documented

Generally, all published or copyrighted information must be documented. This means anything summarized, paraphrased, or quoted. The same goes as well for any unpublished material. If it's not yours you have to say so: You have to give credit where credit is due.

Here are some types of information that should always be documented:

• Facts not widely known or debatable, especially if their veracity can be challenged in any way.
• Hard evidence such as statistics, graphs, charts, diagrams, or figures unless they are products of your own field research.
• Opinions, claims or assertions that illustrate a point that may be perceived as questionable or controversial.
• Unique Phrasing and Terminology that does not fit your writing style, personal voice or level of academic experience.

The types of information that need not be documented include:

• Information largely considered general knowledge.
• Information that can be found in encyclopedias, dictionaries or any of a variety of other sources.
• Information derived from personal experience, observations, or field research.

If you have any difficulty determining whether a piece of information needs to be documented, ask yourself this: Did you possess the information in question before you began your research project or after? You must cite and document information learned about in the course of your work. When in doubt, you should do the same. An ounce of prevention never hurts.

How Sources are Documented

Conventions for documenting source material differ slightly from style to style; however, both in-text citation and end documentation are universal requirements.

They are used in conjunction with each other: First, the in-text citation flags the reader's attention identifying the source material and second, the end documentation catalogues the bibliographic information flagged by the in-text citation.

Note: The Chicago Manual of Style points out an exception: when only a handful of sources are used, footnotes may replace end documentation.

In-Text Citations

There are various types of in-text citation methods. The Chicago Manual of Style uses superscript numbers inserted into the text at the citation point. These numbers direct readers to corresponding footnotes at the bottom of the page or endnotes found at the end of a document. The Council of Biology Editors (CBE) uses superscript numbers also, but they direct reader to corresponding entries found only in a References List at the end.

By far, the most common method is parenthetical. Used by most style sheets, this system relies on parenthetical notes inserted at the point of citation. In the case of the American Psychological Association (APA) , The Chicago Manual , and CSE styles, the parenthetic note contains an author name and publication date. The Modern Language Association (MLA) style places page numbers inside the parenthesis as well, indicating where the cited material can be found.

Each parenthetical note refers to a bibliographic entry in the end documentation, known as a Works Cited or References List . Most writers and readers prefer the efficiency of this system since interruption to the flow of text is minimal and less distracting.

End Documentation

The Works Cited or References List is a bibliographic compilation of the specific sources cited within an academic paper or book and is located at the end of a document on pages that are separate from the rest. Though there are similarities, each documentation system handles formatting a little differently.

Regardless, end documentation accomplishes two things: First, it offers reading suggestions to those interested in your research, especially those who wish to replicate your work. Second, it provides the writer with a tool for assessing his or her research.

Once a Works Cited or References List is compiled it is much easier to consider the following questions:

• How comprehensive is my research? What have I omitted?
• Are there other sources that would lend further credibility to my position?
• Will my audience expect me to have reviewed more source material?

In-text citation and end documentation are two sides of the same coin. They function together. One without the other makes little sense.

Related Information: Example of How Sources are Documented

An in-text citation must be accompanied by a corresponding entry in a Works Cited or References List at the end of your document. One without the other is incomplete and unacceptable.

Imagine reading an article and you come across the following:

The difficulty I describe here is akin to what Michael North, in his discussion of Claude McKay's dialect writing, aptly calls the "linguistic no-man's-land" entered when McKay attempts to stop writing in the Jamaican dialect (67).

Suppose you are unfamiliar with Michael North and want to know more about his work. The Works Cited or References list at the end of the article should help by revealing the following bibliographic entry:

If this entry is missing, or if there is no Works Cited or References List at all, the reader will have a hard time tracking down and learning more about the author and his work. Likewise, if the entry exists but no citations appear in the text, where and how and why the writer used the source will be unclear.

Note: A Works Cited , Literature Cited , or References List is known as a Selected Bibliography and contains only those sources cited within a document. An actual Bibliography is more extensive. It represents all the sources reviewed in the research process and includes those which are not cited in your document.

This distinction is important because students are sometimes asked to include both end documentation and a bibliography when they hand in their work. Before beginning, it's a good idea to find out what your instructor requires and which documentation system he or she expects you to use.

Connor, Peter, Donna LeCourt, & Laurel Nesbitt. (2009). Documentation Systems: An Overview. Writing@CSU . Colorado State University. https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/guide.cfm?guideid=14