Simon and Schuster Handbook For Writers Chapter 1 -- Documenting Sources

Documenting Sources

In addition to the requirements of clear and correct prose, academic research writing imposes upon writers the responsibility of fully and accurately documenting sources. Documentation gives readers access to the sources of ideas. It is part of every step of the research process.

If you begin with the idea of documentation in mind, you will find it easy to avoid plagiarism--presenting the work of others as if it were your own. Neither your own ideas and opinions nor common facts known to educated persons need to be documented; but you must acknowledge sources from whom you have discovered detailed facts, useful ideas, or specific language.

Each time you cite a source in the body of your paper, and whenever you paraphrase, you need to provide a unique, abbreviated account of that source. At the minimum, furnish a name and a page that will allow your reader to find a complete description of that source in your bibliography. When your bibliography supplies only the sources your paper directly refers to, it goes by the title of "Works Cited" or "References." When you include all the sources that influenced you, even if they are not actually denoted in your text, you'll call it "Works Consulted" or "Bibliography."

Different disciplines have developed different styles of documentation. Writings in the humanities follow either the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the University of Chicago press manual (CM) style guidelines. Social sciences use the American Psychological Association (APA) style, and math, life sciences, and physical sciences use a style developed by the Council of Biology Editors (CBE). The MLA, the APA, and the University of Chicago maintain Web sites with complete format listings, listed below, that are updated frequently. Printed style guides are as follows: MLA--MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, by Joseph Garibaldi (1995); CM--The Chicago Manual of Style (1993); APA--Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (1994); CBE--Scientific Style and Format.

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