Hey, This is Julia from the MSU Writing Center with some quick tips to help you have your best write ever. You just have been assinged the dreaded essay and your professor has required that you use sources. How dare they, right? So now you have to scramble to find peer review sources and how to cite them. Well before you begin panic, lets talk about some different ways to cite sources. Well first, why do we even need to cite things. Well we need to give credit people to who worked so hard to write the sources we now need to read. After all, how would you feel if a person just took the essay you slaved for hours to write and said it was theirs. Also, it is important to backup your ideas, and show that you are well read on the subject you are tackling, and that you are not just making things up.

There are a lot of different documentation styles; some common ones are MLA, APA, and Chicago styles. These are used in different areas for different reasons. MLA documentation is used mainly for the humanities, like English, Rhetoric, and literature. Since MLA deals mainly with literature and other texts, page number and author are important, and are used for in text citations. This differs from APA style, which focuses more on data publication, because texts are timeless and can remain relevant even when they are written centuries ago. Speaking of APA style it is often used for the social sciences like, sociology, education, and psychology. Like I said in text citations focus on the author and the date of publication. This is because these sources are usually research based or publications on experiments, which the date these were done very important. Research from the 20’s might not be as relevant as something done in 2002. Chicago style issues primarily in history and some humanities courses. This is uses footnotes and end notes, instead of in text citations. This allows you to explain what you are citing a little more in-depth at the bottom of the page or at the end of the paper instead of your essay. This can be really helpful in a history class when you need to explain or elaborate on an older term unrelated to your paper briefly without disturbing the organization of your essay.

Figuring out what you need to say is a little more complicated than just citing what you quote, if you are using any idea that is not your own or coming from a source you need to cite, even if you are paraphrasing. Quotes should be in quotations naturally and should be word for word from the text. Longer quotes should be in block quote formation. There two types of citations: in text and works cited or bibliography at the end of the paper. MLA in text citations include author and page numbers in parenthesis before your closing punctuation within your sentence. APA follows the same format but includes author name and year of publication instead of page number. Chicago uses endnotes and footnotes instead parenthetical citations. Keep in mind that block quotes work a little differently. MLA requires a work-cited page at the end of your essay, which is the same thing as a reference or bibliography just with a different MLA specific name. APA and Chicago use reference lists.

That’s all for now for more quick tips for how to have your best write ever check out our website, writing.msu.edu. Good luck and thanks for listening.