Chapter 22 Appendix B: A Guide to Research and Documentation

22.1 Choosing a Documentation Format

As a rule, your assignments requiring research will specify a documentation format. If you are free to use the style of your choice, you can choose any format you want as long as you are consistent, but you should know that certain disciplines tend to use specific documentation styles:

• business and social sciences: American Psychological Association (APA)
• natural and applied sciences: Council of Science Editors (CSE)
• humanities: Modern Language Association (MLA) or the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS)

For the purposes of this appendix, we will confine ourselves to the three documentation formats that will be the most common in your undergraduate courses: the style manuals from APA and MLA, as well as CMS. (Other formats are listed at the end of this appendix. Also, note this appendix explains the “Notes-Bibliography” system of CMS, used more often in history, the arts, and humanities, rather than the “Author-Date” system, used in the sciences and social sciences.)

These three systems of documentation have been refined over many generations so that academics can rely on certain standards of attribution when they cite each other’s work and when their work is cited. When you enter into an academic conversation in a given discipline, it’s imperative that you play by its rules. It’s true that popular, nonacademic forms of attribution exist. Making a link to another website in a blog or a Twitter post works quite well, but in an academic context, such a form of attribution is not sufficient. Of course it should go without saying that stealing someone else’s words or borrowing them without attribution, whether you do it casually on the web or in an academic context, is simply wrong.

22.2 Integrating Sources

Your goal within a research paper is to integrate other sources smoothly into your paper to support the points you are making. As long as you give proper credit, you can ethically reference anyone else’s work. You should not, however, create a paper that is made up of one reference after another without any of your input. You should also avoid using half-page or whole-page quotations. Make sure to write enough of your material so that your sources are integrated into your work rather than making up the bulk of your paper.

Think of yourself as a kind of museum docent or tour guide when you are integrating sources into your work. You’ll usually want to take some time to set up your use of a source by placing it in a proper context. That’s why in most cases, before you even launch into quotation, paraphrase, or summary, you will have probably already used what’s called a “signal phrase” that identifies the author of the source, and often the specific publication (whether web or print) from which it is taken. After your use of the source, you’ll need to follow up with analysis and commentary on how you think it fits into the larger context of your argument.

22.3 Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

When you quote another writer’s exact words, you will have to identify the page number within the source where you found the quotation or the paragraph number if the source is taken from an online format or database that does not indicate the original print pagination. Note that only APA allows the use of “p.” or “pp.”

Paraphrased and summarized text is cited within text in the same way that quoted material is cited except that quotations are not used. In APA style, you do not need to include page numbers in this case, but MLA and CMS, on the other hand, do still require page numbers, when they are available.

22.4 Formatting In-Text References

When you use others’ ideas, you have a variety of options for integrating these sources into your text. The main requirement is that you make it clear within your in-text reference that the information is not yours and that you clearly indicate where you got the idea. The following box shows some alternate phrases for signaling that the ideas you are using belong to another writer. Using a variety of wording makes writing more interesting. Note: Past tense is used in these examples. You may elect to use present tense (“writes”) or past perfect tense (“has written”), but keep your tense use consistent.

Table 22.3 "Integrating Sources (Summarized or Paraphrased Ideas)" shows some actual examples of integrating sources within the guidelines of the three most common documentation formats. You should weave the cited details in with your ideas.

22.5 Developing a List of Sources

This appendix provides a general overview of some of the most common documentation guidelines for different types of sources. For situations not described in this appendix, such as types of sources not described in this chapter or situations where you elect to use footnotes or endnotes in addition to in-text, parenthetical citations, check the complete guidelines for the style you are using:

• APA: http://www.apastyle.org
• MLA: http://www.mla.org
• CMS: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org

Some general online searches, especially those conducted on your library databases, are also likely to generate guidelines for a variety of documentation styles. Look for an opportunity to click on a “citation” or “documentation” icon, or ask a member of your college library staff for guidance. You can even get help through the word processing program you typically use. Microsoft Word, for instance, has an entire tab on the taskbar devoted to managing and documenting sources in all three of the styles featured here. Also, don’t forget the tip from Chapter 7 "Researching" about the free resources that abound on the web from various online writing labs (OWLs) managed by writing programs at colleges and universities across the country.

Each different documentation style has its own set of guidelines for creating a list of references at the end of the essay (called “works cited” in MLA, “references” in APA, and “bibliography” in CMS). This section includes citations for the sources included in other parts of this appendix. For additional citation styles, consult complete citation guidelines for the style you are using.

Source lists should always be in alphabetical order by the first word of each reference, and you should use hanging indentation (with the first line of each reference flush with the margin and subsequent lines indented one-half inch). Here are some of the most common types of entries you will be using for your references at the end of your research essays. These lists are by no means exhaustive, but you will note from the examples some of the most important differences in conventions of punctuation, font, and the exact content of each style.

22.6 Using Other Formats

Although APA, MLA, and Chicago are the most widely used documentation styles, many other styles are used in specific situations. Some of these other styles are listed in Table 22.10 "Other Documentation Formats". You can find more about them by searching online.