History Pathfinder: Citing Sources

What is the Purpose of Writing a Bibliography?
What is Bibliography?
Sample Citations
Online Resources
College Policy
Plagiarism
 
 
What is the Purpose of Writing a Bibliography?

Taking other people's ideas and presenting them as your own is a crime. When you are writing a research paper, you must tell your readers which ideas were not your own. A bibliography will help you do this.

Positively, compiling a bibliography will help you learn about your topic, discover the experts and important writings in your field, and will direct your readers who want to learn more about your topic to other resources. The act of forming a bibliography will also help to familiarize you with keywords you can use to conduct more extensive searches, and will help you to form your own original opinions about the subject.

 
 
What is a Bibliography?
 
A bibliography is a list of citations made up of all the sources you consulted in preparation for writing a research paper. Even if you do not directly quote an item in your research paper, you should still cite it in your bibliography if you used it to gain knowledge you did not previously have.

 
Each citation in the bibliography is a description of the essential elements of each work consulted. This includes, but is not limited to, the title, author, publisher, and date of publication of each work.

 
The bibliography in a typical research paper is presented in alphabetical order by the the first item listed (usually the author).

Citations are constructed using strict rules regarding punctuation, text format, and paragraph indentation. The Chicago citation style is typically used by history. Examples of other citation styles can be found here.

Current copies of The Chicago Manual of Style can be found online or in the reference section at:
REF Z253. U69 1993.

 
Sample Citations
 
When writing a citation in the Chicago style, pay particular attention to italics, punctuation, indentation, and capitalization.
 
Many more samples of citations presented in the Chicago style can be found in The Chicago Manual of Style. Please consult this book or a librarian for help with unusual resources.

All of the following samples are taken from:

The Chicago Manual of Style. 14th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
(This is a sample of book with no author or editor listed and including edition number.)

 

Book with Two Authors:
Note: italicize the title of the book.

(In a bibliography. Note indents, order of authors' names and use of periods.)
Weinberg, Arthur and Lila Weinberg. Clarence Darrow: A Sentimental
      Rebel. New York: Putnam's Sons, 1980.

(In footnote or endnote. Note indents, order of authors' names and use of commas.)
     3. Arthur Weinberg and Lila Weinberg, Clarence Darrow: A Sentimental
Rebel (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1980), 56.

 

Scholarly Article:
Note: put the title of the article in quotes and italicize the title of the journal.

(In a bibliography. Note indents, page numbers, and use of periods and colons.)
Robertson, Noel. "The Dorian Migration and Corinthian Ritual," Classical
     Philology 75 (1980): 1-22.

(In footnote or endnote. Note indents, page number quoted, and use of commas and colons.)
     5. Noel Robertson, "The Dorian Migration and Corinthian Ritual," Classical
Philology 75 (1980), 16.

 

Popular Article (with two authors):
Note: put the title of the article in quotes and italicize the title of the journal.

(In a bibliography. Note order of author's names, indents, page numbers, and use of periods and colons.)
Caspari, E.W., and R.E. Marshak. "The Rise and Fall of Lysenko." Science,
     16 July 1965, 275-78.

(In footnote or endnote. Note order of authors' names, indents, page number quoted, and use of commas and colons.)
     8. E.W. Caspari and Re.E. Marshak, "The Rise and Fall of Lysenko," Science,
16 July 1965, 276.

 

Newspaper Article:
(In a bibliography. Names of cities not part of titles of foreign newspapers are added in parenthses after the title and are not italicized.)
Robbins, Williams. "Big Wheels: The Rotary Club at 75." New York Times.
     17 February 1980, sec. 3.

(In footnote or endnote.)
     4. Williams Robbins, "Big Wheels: The Rotary Club at 75," New York Times,
17 February 1980, sec. 3.

 

Website:

The following samples are taken from:

Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.


(In bibliography. With author.)
Rayburn, Kevin. The 1920s. http://www.louisville.edu/~kprayb01/1920s.html.

(In footnote or endnote.)
     21. Kevin Rayburn, The 1920s, http://www.louisville.edu/~kprayb01/1920s.html.

 

 

Online Resources

Samples of papers written using the Chicago style can be found at the following websites:


Research and Documentation Online
Diane Hacker's online guide for all citation styles.

 
Citation Styles
An all purpose web site from Bedford/St. Martin's publishers. It is contained in Online: a Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources.

 


College Policy on Citing Sources

It is necessary for you to give proper credit to all of the resources you use in your research papers. Plagiarism is a violation of Dickinson's Student Code of Conduct, and is a specific form of cheating defined in the code as follows:

1) To plagiarize is to use without proper citation or acknowledgment the words, ideas, or work of another. Whenever one relies on someone else for phraseology, even for only two or three words, one must acknowledge indebtedness by using quotation marks and giving the source, either in the text or in a footnote.

2) When one borrows facts which are not matters of general knowledge, including all statistics and translations, one must indicate one's indebtedness in the text or footnote. When one borrows an idea or the logic of an argument, one must acknowledge indebtedness either in a footnote or in the text. When in doubt, footnote. (Academic Standards Committee, November, 1965)

You should include appropriate citations in all of your research. Your professor will direct you as to what style he or she prefers.

Additionally, you should review the American Historical Association Professional Standands.

Plagiarism
The following web site will help you understand what plagiarism is.

What is Plagiarism?
Georgetown University defines plagiarism, paraphrasing, and copyright. How to cite web resources, and what to do if someone helps you with your research.

 

 

 

Updated March 18, 2010