College of Visual Arts
Guide to Writing and Research
Section 4: Citation format
Dr. Sue Short
(Note: This page is
available as an Adobe Acrobat file for printing. Click
here to download.)
General Principles
All resource materials used in writing
research papers must be cited in Modern Language Association (MLA) format, the uniform system used at the College of Visual Arts.
There are many different citation systems, but we have selected the MLA system
for use at CVA because it is used in many disciplines.
Remember that citations are to be used to accompany any
fact or conclusion drawn from source materials. This includes not only
direct quotations from sources, but also summaries and paraphrases of research
materials.
References to and images of visual works, such as
paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, and designs, must also be
properly cited to the source.
Sources must be cited in two
contexts within every research paper. Statements within the body of the
paper must be cited to the source in a manner that directs the readers'
attention to the List of Works Cited, or Bibliography, placed at the end of the
paper, that gives the full citation of the work.
The citation in the body of the paper
is a brief statement that gives the name of the author and the page number on
which the reference can be found, in parentheses. MLA is called a
"parenthetical citation system" because of this placement of the
citation within parentheses in the body of the text. Footnote systems
place the cited material at the bottom of the page with numbered references in
the text, but MLA uses footnotes only for explanatory narrative
material. Here are some
examples of MLA format for common types of sources:
Format for in-text citations of
material
This format is used for the body of the
paper, in which citations for all statements of fact or opinion from sources
must be cited. The format differs slightly with each variation in the way
in which the sentence presenting the material is structured. The following
are examples of the most frequently used formats for in-text citations:
If the author is not named in text:
Writing in sociology is often tedious,
boring, and prolix (Reed 2).
In this case, a paraphrase of Reed's
opinion about the nature of writing in sociology is presented, and is
identified as Reed's opinion by the (Reed 2) at the end of the sentence.
If the author of the
reference is named in the text in which the material is mentioned:
John Shelton Reed criticized the usual style
of writing in sociology in his article "On Narrative and Sociology" (2).
The author's name is John
Shelton Reed, so it need not be mentioned a second time at the end of the
sentence. Only the page number (2) is required at the end of this
sentence to identify the referenced passage.
Handling multiple authors of referenced material:
Name each of two or three authors of
a text (Able, Baker, and Carter 25).
For four or more authors, use et al.
(Able et al. 25).
Incorporating images:
Images that are
incorporated in a paper or a portfolio are referred to as "Figures," and are
numbered consecutively within the document. Both the image and
the source of the image are cited. The information is also
included in the List of Works Cited at the end of a paper. An example:
|
Fig 1. Mary Cassatt,
Mother and Child. 1890. Oil on canvas. Wichita Museum of
Art.
Image from Mystudios.com.
21 July 2004.
<http://www.mystudios.com/women/abcde/cassatt_child.html>. |
List of works cited, or
bibliography
At the end of every research paper, you must
attach a list of the reference sources you have cited in the body of the
paper. Some writers also include a
"List of Sources Consulted" to indicate other materials that they
reviewed but did not cite in writing the paper. The
format of citations in the List of Works Cited depends upon the type of source:
Citing full books, also
called monographs:
Tompkins, Jane. West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns.
New York: Oxford UP, 1992.
The citation gives the name of the
author, Jane Tompkins, the title, the place published, the name of the
publisher (Oxford University Press, with the common abbreviation UP
preferred in MLA format), and the date published. The title of the
book is in italics. Note the proper punctuation of the citation.
If the cited source is one
article or selection within a collection of articles or poems, it is
considered a work in an anthology:
Synge, J.M. "On an Anniversary." The New Oxford Book of Irish
Verse. Ed. Thomas Kinsella. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. 318.
The poem being cited here is titled
"On an Anniversary," written by J.M. Synge. It is found
within the book titled The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse, which was
edited by Thomas Kinsella. Synge's poem can be found on page 318 of
the book. Note that the title of the work within the anthology is
placed inside quotation marks, while the title of the whole book is in
italics.
Citing a source that is an
article that was published in a periodical:
Reed, John Shelton. "On Narrative and Sociology." Social Forces.
68.1 (1989): 1 - 14.
This citation tells the reader that
John Shelton Reed wrote an article entitled "On Narrative and
Sociology," and this article was published in the journal called Social
Forces, placed in italics because it is considered the same as a full
book. Periodicals come out at various periods of time, and the issue
in which the referenced article appeared must be specifically
identified. In this case, Reed's article appeared in volume 68, number
1, published during 1989, on pages 1 through 14.
Citing visual images reproduced or referred to within
the paper:
Cassatt, Mary. Mother and Child.
1890. Wichita Museum of Art. American Painting:
1560-1913. By John Pearce. New York: McGraw, 1964.
Slide 22.
The citation should include the artist, title, year,
and the institution (or private owner or place) where the work is located.
If the image was acquired from a reproduction in a
publication, include identifying information about that publication, as
above.
If the image was acquired online, give the appropriate
identifying information about the web site from which the image was
acquired. Be sure to include the date accessed:
Cassatt, Mary. Mother and Child.
1890. Wichita Museum of Art. MyStudios.com, 21 July 2004.
<http://www.mystudios.com/women/abcde/cassatt_child.html>.
Documenting Sources
from the World Wide Web (from MLA)
Sources on the World Wide Web that students and
scholars use in their research include scholarly projects, reference databases,
the texts of books, articles in periodicals, and professional and personal
sites. Entries in a works-cited list for such sources contain as many items from
the list below as are relevant and available. Following this list are sample
entries for some common kinds of Web sources.
- Name of the author, editor, compiler, or
translator of the source (if available and relevant), reversed for
alphabetizing and followed by an abbreviation, such as ed., if
appropriate
- Title of a poem, short story, article, or
similar short work within a scholarly project, database, or periodical (in
quotation marks); or title of a posting to a discussion list or forum (taken
from the subject line and put in quotation marks), followed by the
description Online posting
- Title of a book (underlined)
- Name of the editor, compiler, or translator
of the text (if relevant and if not cited earlier), preceded by the
appropriate abbreviation, such as Ed.
- Publication information for any print version
of the source
- Title of the scholarly project, database,
periodical, or professional or personal site (underlined); or, for a
professional or personal site with no title, a description such as Home
page
- Name of the editor of the scholarly project
or database (if available)
- Version number of the source (if not part of
the title) or, for a journal, the volume number, issue number, or other
identifying number
- Date of electronic publication, of the latest
update, or of posting
- For a work from a subscription service, the
name of the service and--if a library is the subscriber--the name and city
(and state abbreviation, if necessary) of the library
- For a posting to a discussion list or forum,
the name of the list or forum
- The number range or total number of pages,
paragraphs, or other sections, if they are numbered
- Name of any institution or organization
sponsoring or associated with the Web site
- Date when the researcher accessed the source
- Electronic address, or URL, of the source (in
angle brackets); or, for a subscription service, the URL of the service's
main page (if known) or the keyword assigned by the service
Examples of citation format:
Professional Site
Portuguese Language Page. U of Chicago. 1
May 1997
<http://humanities.uchicago.edu/romance/port/>.
Personal Site
Lancashire, Ian. Home page. 1 May 1997
<http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/~ian/index.html>.
Book
Nesbit, E[dith]. Ballads and Lyrics of
Socialism.
London, 1908. Victorian Women Writers Project.
Ed. Perry Willett. Apr. 1997. Indiana U. 26 Apr.
1997 <http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/nesbit/ballsoc.html>.
Article in a Reference Database
"Fresco." Britannica Online.
Vers. 97.1.1. Mar. 1997.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. 29 Mar. 1997 <http://www.eb.com:180>.
Article in a Journal
Flannagan, Roy. "Reflections on Milton and
Ariosto."
Early Modern Literary Studies 2.3 (1996):
16 pars. 22 Feb. 1997 <http://unixg.ubc.ca:7001/
0/e-sources/emls/02-3/flanmilt.html>.
Article in a Magazine
Landsburg, Steven E. "Who Shall Inherit the
Earth?"
Slate 1 May 1997. 2 May 1997 <http://
www.slate.com/Economics/97-05-01/Economics.asp>.
Article from a Database Service
Barrera, Rebeca Maria. "A Case for Bilingual
Education." Scholastic Parent and Child. Nov-Dec 2004:
72-74.
Academic Search Premier.
EBSCOhost. College of Visual Arts Lib, St. Paul, MN. 1 Feb.
2005.
<http://search.epnet.com>.
Note: When retrieving material from a subscription
database such as EBSCOhost, provide both the publication information about the
article itself and also information about the database you used to access the
article. Indicate the library through which you gained access to the
database, usually our CVA library.
Posting to a Discussion List
Merrian, Joanne. "Spinoff: Monsterpiece
Theatre."
Online posting. 30 Apr. 1994. Shaksper: The Global
Electronic Shakespeare Conference. 27 Aug. 1997
<http://www.arts.ubc.ca/english/iemls/shak/MONSTERP_SPINOFF.txt>.
Reference to World Wide Web
sources in the text
World Wide Web sources are cited like printed
works in parenthetical references in the text. Include enough information
to direct the reader to the corresponding item in the list of works cited.
Web pages usually lack page numbers, so these are omitted in the text
citation. If the page has section or paragraph numbers, include those in
the cite.
Proper citation format has many
variations, and writers need to consult the style manual often to learn the
proper format for specific items. See The Bedford Handbook, Diana
Hacker, for a full discussion of MLA and other citation formats. Consult
the MLA web cite for further information: www.mla.org/set_stl.htm
