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ENGL 119: Literary Cities: Literary Dublin

This guide is for students enrolled in Colleen Jaurretche's ENGL 119 course, Literary Cities: Literary Dublin.

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How to Write an Annotated Bibliography

Citation Styles

The moment you are asked to cite, take a look at your assignment to see if a specific citation style is indicated. This information must be known before you can properly cite your work. As with any citation system, using it correctly protects you from accusations of plagiarism. Common citation styles include MLA, APA, and Chicago Manual of Style. Use the tabs above to learn more.

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is widely used in the humanities, especially in writing on language and literature. It provides writers with a system for referencing their sources through parenthetical citation in their essays and Works Cited pages. If you are asked to use MLA format, you can access the online companion (style.mla.org) or consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (8th edition), which can be found in the UCLA Library catalog:

APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 7th edition of the APA Manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page.

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) covers a variety of topics from manuscript preparation and publication to grammar, usage, and documentation.

There are two main styles:

  • The Notes-Bibliography System (NB), which is used by those in literature, history, and the arts.
    • The Chicago NB system is most often used in history and is often used in the humanities and provides writers with a system for referencing their sources through footnote or endnote citation in their writing and through bibliography pages.
    • As with any citation stystem using it correctly protects the writer from accusations of plagiarism. As mentioned earlier in this guide proper citation builds credibility to the paper by demonstrating accountability to source material.
    • Sample Paper in Notes-Bibliography (from Purdue OWL)
  • The Author-Date System, which is preferred in the sciences.
    • In the Author-Date System each citation consists of two parts: the text citations, which provides brief identifying information within the text, and the reference list (list of sources used) which provides full bibliographic information.
    • Descriptions for Style Guides (APA). Russell, T., Angeli, E., Wagner, J., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Anderson, M., Soderland, L., & Brizee, A. (2010, August 1, 2010). General format. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/
    • Sample Paper in Author-Date (from Purdue OWL)
  • If you are asked to use the CMS, be sure to consult the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, which can be found online or in print via the UCLA Library catalog. The online resource provides a quick guide for both the notes-bibliography system and the author-date system.

Citation Guides

The OWL at Purdue has a series of formatting and style guides for formatting and citing papers. You can use the menu to navigate or search for a specific case/need. 

Citation Managers

Organize all your research in one place and quickly generate your bibliography. Not sure which to choose?  Take a look at the Citation Managers guide to help you decide.  

Best Practices for Avoiding Plagiarism

The entire section below came from a research guide from Iowa State University.  To avoid plagiarism, one must provide a reference to that source to indicate where the original information came from (see the "Source:" section below).

"There are many ways to avoid plagiarism, including developing good research habits, good time management, and taking responsibility for your own learning. Here are some specific tips:

  • Don't procrastinate with your research and assignments.
    Good research takes time. Procrastinating makes it likely you'll run out of time or be unduly pressured to finish. This sort of pressure can often lead to sloppy research habits and bad decisions. Plan your research well in advance, and seek help when needed from your professor, from librarians and other campus support staff.
  • Commit to doing your own work.
    If you don't understand an assignment, talk with your professor. Don't take the "easy way" out by asking your roommate or friends for copies of old assignments. A different aspect of this is group work. Group projects are very popular in some classes on campus, but not all. Make sure you clearly understand when your professor says it's okay to work with others on assignments and submit group work on assignments, versus when assignments and papers need to represent your own work.
  •  Be 100% scrupulous in your note taking.
    As you prepare your paper or research, and as you begin drafting your paper. One good practice is to clearly label in your notes your own ideas (write "ME" in parentheses) and ideas and words from others (write "SMITH, 2005" or something to indicate author, source, source date). Keep good records of the sources you consult, and the ideas you take from them. If you're writing a paper, you'll need this information for your bibliographies or references cited list anyway, so you'll benefit from good organization from the beginning.
  • Cite your sources scrupulously.
    Always cite other people's work, words, ideas and phrases that you use directly or indirectly in your paper. Regardless of whether you found the information in a book, article, or website, and whether it's text, a graphic, an illustration, chart or table, you need to cite it. When you use words or phrases from other sources, these need to be in quotes. Current style manuals are available at most reference desks and online. They may also give further advice on avoiding plagiarism.
  • Understand good paraphrasing.
    Simply using synonyms or scrambling an author's words and phrases and then using these "rewrites" uncredited in your work is plagiarism, plain and simple. Good paraphrasing requires that you genuinely understand the original source, that you are genuinely using your own words to summarize a point or concept, and that you insert in quotes any unique words or phrases you use from the original source. Good paraphrasing also requires that you cite the original source. Anything less and you veer into the dangerous territory of plagiarism."
Source: Vega García, S.A. (2012). Understanding plagiarism: Information literacy guide. Iowa State University. Retrieved from http://instr.iastate.libguides.com/content.php?pid=10314. [Accessed January 3, 2017]