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Nursing Information Literacy Tutorial

What is Citing?

Citations

When we use another person's idea in our research, we must include a brief notation next to that idea to let our readers know who developed it. This brief notation is called an in-text citation. At the end of our work, we include a fuller notation, which provides details that allow others to identify and locate the source in which we found that idea. This fuller notation is referred to as an end-of-paper citation.

Citation Styles

Which details must be included within these in-text and end-of-paper citations, and how each is formatted, depends on the citation style we have been asked to use. 

For example, end-of-paper citations are listed on the last (usually separate) page of the paper. In APA style that page is titled "References."

Each citation style has different rules about how in-text and end-of paper citations for various source types (books, articles, web pages, videos) and situations (online, print, no author, multiple authors) must be constructed (what is included, and in what order) and formatted (punctuation, italics, capitalization).

Why Cite?

Citing your sources is important for a number of reasons:

  • It allows your readers to locate the sources you used in order to verify the information, or to do their own research on that subject.
  • It shows how your research builds on the research of others. A citation after a phrase tells your readers which ideas came from someone else, so that it is assumed everything else in your project was your own, original thinking, whether that thinking takes the concept a step further, in a totally new direction, or disputes the concept.
  • It is an important part of Academic Integrity. Using another person’s ideas or words without indicating via a citation where you found them is plagiarism. Nassau Community College faculty members have access to Turnitin, which identifies similarities between the text in your papers and Turnitin’s own constantly growing database of student papers, billions of Web pages, and millions of articles from academic books and journals. This helps instructors identify instances of plagiarism.
  • Possible consequences of plagiarism include a failing grade for the assignment, a failing grade for the course, and termination from the college.

Citation Styles

Commonly Used Citation Styles

The citation styles (also known as documentation styles or bibliographic styles) commonly used by NCC students are MLA and APA. Each style is associated with different disciplines (or areas of study):

  • MLA (Modern Language Association) style is associated with the humanities: languages, literature, philosophy, religion and the arts.
  • APA (American Psychological Association) style is associated with the social sciences: psychology and behavioral science, education, sociology, anthropology, business, economics, political science and criminal justice.

Citation Tips

Formatting Citations

While you conduct your research, you should collect all of the identifying pieces of information about your sources. To properly format that information in your paper, you will follow the organization guidelines laid out by the particular citation style you have been assigned to use.

All citation styles require similar information, and organize that information in similar ways. The difference is primarily what is included, order, capitalization, and punctuation. Learning how to use one citation style will make it easy to learn others. The organization and formatting guidelines for each style are compiled in resources called style guides.

Citing Tips

Citations consist of identifying information about the sources you are using in your research. To cite properly, you need to be able to distinguish between different types of information sources. For example, there are different rules for citing print versus online sources, and individual online articles versus articles from library databases. If you cannot find a certain piece of information (for example, many websites do not list an author or page numbers) most style guides will tell you how to handle these situations.

Before you start your research:

  • Find out which citation style is commonly used in your field.
  • Ask your Professor which citation style to use. Your Professor is ultimately grading you, so the decision rests with that person, not the librarians.
  • If you know in advance that you are required to use only articles from scholarly journals found in the library's databases (or another particular type of source), use the style guide to note the required citation information for that type of source.

As you research:

For every information source you identify, decide what kind of information source it is, and use the style guide to note the information you will need to include to cite that source properly. Keep a running list of that information as you search.
Often, we begin researching one topic and that research leads us to a more interesting topic. Keep track of citation information for all related sources, so you can easily find them again, if needed.

APA Format

APA (which stands for American Psychological Association) format is a standardized method for giving credit to those whose work you use.   It is important to let your readers know where you got your information. This style is used in courses such as History, Allied Health, Education, Nursing, Psychology and Sociology.

 Every research paper or project that uses outside sources must include a list of those sources at the end of the paper. This is called References and should list all sources in proper APA format alphabetically by the authors' last names.

APA format has specific forms for each type of resource you use: books, magazine articles, journal articles etc. It even differentiates between online and print materials. It may require inclusion of a D.O.I. or Digital Object Identifier number.

Every source you used must be included in your References page at the end of your paper.

Parts of an APA Citation

Each source format has its own citation format. In addition to the author(last name, first initial) and title:

  • a book will require the city of publication, the publisher and copyright date.
  • a magazine article will require the date of publication, volume, issue number and page numbers. 
  • Online articles require the DOI or digital object identifier, if available. If not, the URL must be included.
  • Articles from databases do not require the name of the database.
  • Titles of books and journals are italicized.
  • Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of an article or chapter title.

 

Citation Tools

In addition to citation style guides, there are numerous tools -- from basic to advanced -- to help you format, organize, and share your citations.