When must I cite a source?
If it didn’t come directly from you first, you must cite! “In-text” citation lets the reader know where you got your information.
Direct quotes:
Example: “80 percent of the parents polled indicated they had contacted their child’s teacher at least once during the first week of school” (Harrington 3).
Here author’s name and the page number on which this fact was found are set off from the text with parenthesis. If the author is unknown, you may type the just the page number.
Indirect quotes – Paraphrasing and Summarizing - When you paraphrase a source, you restate the source's ideas in your own words and sentence structure . Select what is relevant to your topic, and restate only that. Changing only a few words is not sufficient in paraphrasing . Instead, you need to completely rephrase the author's ideas in your own words. You do not need to use quotation marks.
Example: Many parents get involved with their child’s education. This was indicated in a recent poll which found that 80% of parents had contacted their child’s teacher within seven days after school began. (Harrington 3 - 5). Note: If the paraphrased or summarized information/idea is from several pages, include all of the page numbers.
If there is no author given include the main words of the title in quotation: (“How to Count”)
Electronic Sources (i.e. web pages)
When you quote from electronic sources that do not provide page numbers (like webpages), cite the author’s name only. If there is no author, cite the first word or words from the title only.
Examples: “80 percent of the parents polled indicated they had contacted their child’s teacher at least once during the first week of school” (Harrington).
“80 percent of the parents polled indicated they had contacted their child’s teacher at least once during the first week of school” (“Parent Involvement”)
Remember: Even if you cite within your text you will still have to include a Works Cited Page written in either MLA or APA style. See the links for more information about how to format that page .