Humanities 110

Citations allow you to document where the information you've used in your research came from and to give other scholars proper credit for their work. These are some common situations that require citations:

• A direct quotation from a text.
• A direct quotation from someone else’s writing about that text.
• A paraphrase of the ideas of another writer.

Some courses at Reed require an annotated bibliography. An annotated bibliography is a list of citations, each of which is followed by a brief description and evaluation that explains the relevancy, accuracy and usefulness of the source. The Cornell University Library has a helpful guide to creating and formatting annotated bibliographies. Style manuals such as the Chicago Manual of Style also often include information on formatting annotated bibliographies.

Citations should be formatted consistently according to an established style, such as Chicago, MLA, or APA. Copies of all of the guides below are available at the reference desk and in the Reference Room.

• Chicago Manual of Style Online 
• MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing
• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers Reference, LB2369 .G53 2009
• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association Reference, BF76.7 .P83 2010
• Purdue OWL Research and citation help from Purdue University; includes information about MLA, APA, and Chicago citation styles.
• Harvard Guide to Using Sources A publication of the Harvard College Writing Program

You can use software like Zotero to help manage your citations. Reed Library's guide Zotero.

Evaluating information on the web