FSP 164-21 The Stories Behind Our Food.: Citing Your Sources

An extremely important part of scholarly writing is documenting your sources. Everything derived from an outside source, i.e., ideas, information, statistics, etc., must be credited whether it is found in print or via the Internet.

Style manuals or guides provide instructions and examples of how to format papers, cite sources, and prepare references or bibliographies.

American Anthropological Association Style Guide

American Sociological Association Style (Trinity University Library)

Formatting in Sociology (Purdue University Online Writing Lab)

All papers in this class will use the MLA format:

Modern Language Association (MLA)

MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 3rd Ed.
REF PN147.G444 2008, 1 copy at the Reference Desk

• Using Modern Language Association (MLA) Format (Purdue University Online Writing Lab)
• MLA Style - Frequently Asked Questions (Official style recommendations, including FAQs about citing document sources from the World Wide Web.)
• MLA Citation Style (Cornell University Library)

Other formats provided for informational purposes:

American Psychological Association (APA)

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Ed
REF BF76.7.P83 2010, 1 copy at the Reference Desk, 1 copy at the Reserve Desk

• APAStyle.org (Style tips and official recommendations, including citation guidelines for electronic media.)
• APA Style Frequently Asked Questions
• Using American Psychological Association (APA) Format (Purdue University Online Writing Lab)

Chicago Manual of Style

Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Ed.
REF Z253.U69 2003, 1 copy at the Reference Desk; 14th edition (1993) in Course Reserves; 13th edition (1982) in general collection

Turabian

A Manual for Writers of Term papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th Ed.
REF LB2369.T8 1996,1 copy at the Reference Desk.

Academic Integrity at TCNJ

Academic Integrity information for students.

A citation management tool helps you:

• keep track of articles and books as you find them
• tag and annotate research materials
• easily create in-text citations
• instantly generate end-of-document bibliographies
• share research with collaborators
• conduct better research, faster

We suggest three choices to you in this guide: Refworks, Zotero, and Mendeley. (Each is available free of charge).

Refworks, is provided by TCNJ. It is a stable, well-established platform, but has limitations in terms of working with PDF files.

Zotero is an open-source software program that is notable for its ease of use, its ability to grab screenshots, and its capabilities for archiving website content for local storage (including  PDFs).

Mendeley, the newest option of the three, is a cloud-based proprietary system that includes PDF storage, annotation, and tagging. Mendeley has a wide range of functionality but has historically suffered from performance and accuracy issues.

We recommend that you explore a variety of citation managers, consulting with library staff as needed, before choosing one. We can provide guidance on best practices and share our experiences.