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When typing your paper, you will need to cite your sources in the text. Doing this allows your reader to look up the full citation in the reference list. You will typically cite the information you need immediately after the sentence in which you quote or paraphrase it. If you read through the information on this page and are still not sure how to cite something in your text, feel free to contact the library.
When your source has one author, you would type the source's publication year in parentheses right after typing the last name of the author. It would look like this:
Smith (2004) found that dogs like to bark at strangers.
In the example above, "Smith" is the author, and 2004 was the year her book or article was published. Another way to cite your source is to put the author's last name and publication year in parentheses at the end of the sentence containing the citation, like this:
Dogs like to bark at strangers (Smith, 2004).
If you are using a direct quote or otherwise need to include the page number, put the page number after the year in the parentheses, like this:
Smith (2004, p. 45) found that dogs like to bark at strangers.
or
Dogs like to bark at strangers (Smith, 2004, p. 45).
If you are using a direct quote but don't have a page number, count which paragraph it quote appears in and cite it using "para." This is commonly used with websites. It would look like this:
Smith (2004, para. 3) found that dogs like to bark at strangers.
or
Dogs like to bark at strangers (Smith, 2004, para. 3).
If your source has two authors, you must type both last names in each citation. When both names are in parentheses, use an ampersand (&). Your citations would look like this:
Smith and Jones (2004, p. 45) found that dogs like to bark at strangers.
or
Dogs like to bark at strangers (Smith & Jones, 2004, p. 45).
If you have three or more authors, you don't have to type out their names. You just type "et al." after the first name. "et al." is a Latin phrase that means there were other authors you left off. The citations would look like this:
Smith et al. (2004, p. 45) found that dogs like to bark at strangers.
or
Dogs like to bark at strangers (Smith et al., 2004, p. 45).
If you have a source that does not list its author, you would cite the first few words of the citation from the references page. This would usually be the title. Be sure to italicize a book, journal, or DVD title, and put parentheses around articles and webpages. Here is what it would look like:
According to The Hobbit (1937), dragons like gold.
or
Dragons like gold (The Hobbit, 1937).
If you interview someone for your paper, or want to use an email from them, you would include the term "personal communication" in your citation, along with the date you conducted the interview. You will also need to include the initials of the person you communicated with. It would look like this:
According to J. Smith (personal communication, January 5, 2019), eggs are round.
or
Eggs are round (J. Smith, personal communication, January 5, 2019).
If you have a source that does not list its publication date, you would type "n.d." in the place where you would put a date. "n.d." stands for "no date." Here is what it would look like:
According to Jones (n.d.), the sky is blue.
or
The sky is blue (Jones, n.d.).
