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How to Cite Sources

Here is a complete list for how to cite sources. Most of these guides present citation guidance and examples in MLA, APA, and Chicago.

If you’re looking for general information on MLA or APA citations , the EasyBib Writing Center was designed for you! It has articles on what’s needed in an MLA in-text citation , how to format an APA paper, what an MLA annotated bibliography is, making an MLA works cited page, and much more!

MLA Format Citation Examples

The Modern Language Association created the MLA Style, currently in its 9th edition, to provide researchers with guidelines for writing and documenting scholarly borrowings.  Most often used in the humanities, MLA style (or MLA format ) has been adopted and used by numerous other disciplines, in multiple parts of the world.

MLA provides standard rules to follow so that most research papers are formatted in a similar manner. This makes it easier for readers to comprehend the information. The MLA in-text citation guidelines, MLA works cited standards, and MLA annotated bibliography instructions provide scholars with the information they need to properly cite sources in their research papers, articles, and assignments.

• Book Chapter
• Conference Paper
• Documentary
• Encyclopedia
• Google Images
• Kindle Book
• Memorial Inscription
• Museum Exhibit
• Painting or Artwork
• PowerPoint Presentation
• Sheet Music
• Thesis or Dissertation
• YouTube Video

APA Format Citation Examples

The American Psychological Association created the APA citation style in 1929 as a way to help psychologists, anthropologists, and even business managers establish one common way to cite sources and present content.

APA is used when citing sources for academic articles such as journals, and is intended to help readers better comprehend content, and to avoid language bias wherever possible. The APA style (or APA format ) is now in its 7th edition, and provides citation style guides for virtually any type of resource.

Chicago Style Citation Examples

The Chicago/Turabian style of citing sources is generally used when citing sources for humanities papers, and is best known for its requirement that writers place bibliographic citations at the bottom of a page (in Chicago-format footnotes ) or at the end of a paper (endnotes).

The Turabian and Chicago citation styles are almost identical, but the Turabian style is geared towards student published papers such as theses and dissertations, while the Chicago style provides guidelines for all types of publications. This is why you’ll commonly see Chicago style and Turabian style presented together. The Chicago Manual of Style is currently in its 17th edition, and Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations is in its 8th edition.

Citing Specific Sources or Events

• Declaration of Independence
• Gettysburg Address
• Martin Luther King Jr. Speech
• President Obama’s Farewell Address
• President Trump’s Inauguration Speech
• White House Press Briefing

Additional FAQs

• Citing Archived Contributors
• Citing a Blog
• Citing a Book Chapter
• Citing a Source in a Foreign Language
• Citing an Image
• Citing a Song
• Citing Special Contributors
• Citing a Translated Article
• Citing a Tweet

6 Interesting Citation Facts

The world of citations may seem cut and dry, but there’s more to them than just specific capitalization rules, MLA in-text citations , and other formatting specifications. Citations have been helping researches document their sources for hundreds of years, and are a great way to learn more about a particular subject area.

Ever wonder what sets all the different styles apart, or how they came to be in the first place? Read on for some interesting facts about citations!

1. There are Over 7,000 Different Citation Styles

You may be familiar with MLA and APA citation styles, but there are actually thousands of citation styles used for all different academic disciplines all across the world. Deciding which one to use can be difficult, so be sure to ask you instructor which one you should be using for your next paper.

2. Some Citation Styles are Named After People

While a majority of citation styles are named for the specific organizations that publish them (i.e. APA is published by the American Psychological Association, and MLA format is named for the Modern Language Association), some are actually named after individuals. The most well-known example of this is perhaps Turabian style, named for Kate L. Turabian, an American educator and writer. She developed this style as a condensed version of the Chicago Manual of Style in order to present a more concise set of rules to students.

3. There are Some Really Specific and Uniquely Named Citation Styles

How specific can citation styles get? The answer is very. For example, the “Flavour and Fragrance Journal” style is based on a bimonthly, peer-reviewed scientific journal published since 1985 by John Wiley & Sons. It publishes original research articles, reviews and special reports on all aspects of flavor and fragrance. Another example is “Nordic Pulp and Paper Research,” a style used by an international scientific magazine covering science and technology for the areas of wood or bio-mass constituents.

4. More citations were created on  EasyBib.com  in the first quarter of 2018 than there are people in California.

The US Census Bureau estimates that approximately 39.5 million people live in the state of California. Meanwhile, about 43 million citations were made on EasyBib from January to March of 2018. That’s a lot of citations.

5. “Citations” is a Word With a Long History

The word “citations” can be traced back literally thousands of years to the Latin word “citare” meaning “to summon, urge, call; put in sudden motion, call forward; rouse, excite.” The word then took on its more modern meaning and relevance to writing papers in the 1600s, where it became known as the “act of citing or quoting a passage from a book, etc.”

6. Citation Styles are Always Changing

The concept of citations always stays the same. It is a means of preventing plagiarism and demonstrating where you relied on outside sources. The specific style rules, however, can and do change regularly. For example, in 2018 alone, 46 new citation styles were introduced , and 106 updates were made to exiting styles. At EasyBib, we are always on the lookout for ways to improve our styles and opportunities to add new ones to our list.

Why Citations Matter

Here are the ways accurate citations can help your students achieve academic success, and how you can answer the dreaded question, “why should I cite my sources?”

They Give Credit to the Right People

Citing their sources makes sure that the reader can differentiate the student’s original thoughts from those of other researchers. Not only does this make sure that the sources they use receive proper credit for their work, it ensures that the student receives deserved recognition for their unique contributions to the topic. Whether the student is citing in MLA format , APA format , or any other style, citations serve as a natural way to place a student’s work in the broader context of the subject area, and serve as an easy way to gauge their commitment to the project.

They Provide Hard Evidence of Ideas

Having many citations from a wide variety of sources related to their idea means that the student is working on a well-researched and respected subject. Citing sources that back up their claim creates room for fact-checking and further research . And, if they can cite a few sources that have the converse opinion or idea, and then demonstrate to the reader why they believe that that viewpoint is wrong by again citing credible sources, the student is well on their way to winning over the reader and cementing their point of view.

They Promote Originality and Prevent Plagiarism

The point of research projects is not to regurgitate information that can already be found elsewhere. We have Google for that! What the student’s project should aim to do is promote an original idea or a spin on an existing idea, and use reliable sources to promote that idea. Copying or directly referencing a source without proper citation can lead to not only a poor grade, but accusations of academic dishonesty. By citing their sources regularly and accurately, students can easily avoid the trap of plagiarism , and promote further research on their topic.

They Create Better Researchers

By researching sources to back up and promote their ideas, students are becoming better researchers without even knowing it! Each time a new source is read or researched, the student is becoming more engaged with the project and is developing a deeper understanding of the subject area. Proper citations demonstrate a breadth of the student’s reading and dedication to the project itself. By creating citations, students are compelled to make connections between their sources and discern research patterns. Each time they complete this process, they are helping themselves become better researchers and writers overall.

When is the Right Time to Start Making Citations?

Make in-text/parenthetical citations as you need them.

As you are writing your paper, be sure to include references within the text that correspond with references in a works cited or bibliography. These are usually called in-text citations or parenthetical citations in MLA and APA formats. The most effective time to complete these is directly after you have made your reference to another source. For instance, after writing the line from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities : “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…,” you would include a citation like this (depending on your chosen citation style):

(Dickens 11).

This signals to the reader that you have referenced an outside source. What’s great about this system is that the in-text citations serve as a natural list for all of the citations you have made in your paper, which will make completing the works cited page a whole lot easier. After you are done writing, all that will be left for you to do is scan your paper for these references, and then build a works cited page that includes a citation for each one.

Need help creating an MLA works cited page ? Try the MLA format generator on EasyBib.com! We also have a guide on how to format an APA reference page .

2. Understand the General Formatting Rules of Your Citation Style Before You Start Writing

While reading up on paper formatting may not sound exciting, being aware of how your paper should look early on in the paper writing process is super important. Citation styles can dictate more than just the appearance of the citations themselves, but rather can impact the layout of your paper as a whole, with specific guidelines concerning margin width, title treatment, and even font size and spacing. Knowing how to organize your paper before you start writing will ensure that you do not receive a low grade for something as trivial as forgetting a hanging indent.

Don’t know where to start? Here’s a formatting guide on APA format .

3. Double-check All of Your Outside Sources for Relevance and Trustworthiness First

Collecting outside sources that support your research and specific topic is a critical step in writing an effective paper. But before you run to the library and grab the first 20 books you can lay your hands on, keep in mind that selecting a source to include in your paper should not be taken lightly. Before you proceed with using it to backup your ideas, run a quick Internet search for it and see if other scholars in your field have written about it as well. Check to see if there are book reviews about it or peer accolades. If you spot something that seems off to you, you may want to consider leaving it out of your work. Doing this before your start making citations can save you a ton of time in the long run.

Finished with your paper? It may be time to run it through a grammar and plagiarism checker , like the one offered by EasyBib Plus. If you’re just looking to brush up on the basics, our grammar guides  are ready anytime you are.

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Citation Basics

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Basic Principles of Citation

APA Style uses the author–date citation system , in which a brief in-text citation directs readers to a full reference list entry. The in-text citation appears within the body of the paper (or in a table, figure, footnote, or appendix) and briefly identifies the cited work by its author and date of publication. This enables readers to locate the corresponding entry in the alphabetical reference list at the end of the paper.

Each work cited must appear in the reference list, and each work in the reference list must be cited in the text (or in a table, figure, footnote, or appendix).

Both paraphrases and quotations require citations.

The following are guidelines to follow when writing in-text citations:

• Ensure that the spelling of author names and the publication dates in reference list entries match those in the corresponding in-text citations.
• Cite only works that you have read and ideas that you have incorporated into your writing. The works you cite may provide key background information, support or dispute your thesis, or offer critical definitions and data.
• Readers may find a long string of citations difficult to understand, especially if they are using assistive technology such as a screen reader; therefore, include only those citations needed to support your immediate point.
• Cite primary sources when possible, and cite secondary sources sparingly.
• Cite sources to document all facts and figures that you mention that are not common knowledge.
• To cite a specific part of a source , provide an author–date citation for the work plus information about the specific part.
• Even when sources cannot be retrieved (e.g., because they are personal communications ), still credit them in the text (however, avoid using online sources that are no longer recoverable).

Basic principles of citation are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Sections 8.1 to 8.36 and the Concise Guide Sections 8.1 to 8.34

Related handouts

• In-Text Citation Checklist (PDF, 227KB)
• Six Steps to Proper Citation (PDF, 112KB)

From the APA Style blog

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From COVID-19 to demands for social justice: Citing contemporary sources for current events

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APA (American Psychological Association) style is most frequently used within the social sciences, in order to cite various sources. This APA Citation Guide provides the general format for in-text citations and the reference page. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 7th ed.

In APA style, two citations are used to cite a source:

• A short citation used in the text (called the in-text citation ).
• A full citation (called the reference ) in the reference list at the end of a paper.

The in-text citation is a short citation that is placed next to the text being cited. The in-text citation lets the reader know that the information came from the cited source. The reference list entry provides complete details of a source and is shown at the end of a document.

In order to properly cite a source in APA style, you must have both citation types in your paper. Every in-text citation has a reference list entry. Every reference list entry has at least one (maybe more) corresponding in-text citation.

In-text citations

The basic elements needed for an in-text citation are the author’s surname and the publication year . Sometimes, page numbers are also included, especially when quotes are mentioned in the text. In-text citations are mentioned in the text in two ways: as a narrative citation or a parenthetical citation.

Narrative citations are incorporated into the text and act as a part of the sentence. Usually, narrative citations use the author’s name in the text and the publication year is enclosed in parenthesis after the name. An example of a narrative citation for one author is given below:

Barbarin (2013) examined socioemotional learning in African boys.

Parenthetical

Parenthetical citations add the author’s name and the publication year at the end of the sentence in parenthesis. An example of a parenthetical citation is given below:

Inhibition and working memory in young children were studied extensively (Aase, 2014).

When are page numbers are included?

Page numbers are referred to within in-text citations when quotes are used. Examples of both narrative citations and parenthetical citations are given below.

Ahmed (2004, p. 44)

Ahmed (2004, pp. 53–56)

Parenthetical:

(Ahmed, 2004, p. 44)

(Ahmed, 2004, pp. 53–56)

Examples of in-text citations

Here are a few examples of in-text citations for a different number of authors:

Use the surname of the author in in-text citations. Use a comma before the publication year in parenthetical citations.

Narrative: 

Bucher (2018)

Parenthetical: 

(Bucher, 2018)

Two authors

Separate the author surnames with an “and” in narrative citations. Use an ampersand symbol (&) in parenthetical citations.

Popescu and Pennacchiotti (2010)

(Popescu & Pennacchiotti, 2010)

Three or more authors

Use the first author surname name followed by et al.

van Dijck et al. (2018)

(van Dijck et al., 2018)

Group author

Treat the group author similar to how you would treat author names.

Auger Collaboration (2003)

(Auger Collaboration, 2018)

If there is no author for the source, use the source title in place of the author’s name. In general, sources with no author appear as parenthetical citations.

When you add such in-text citations, you will either italicize the text or place it in quotations. If the source title is italicized in the reference list entry, italicize the title in the in-text citation. If the title is not italicized, place it in quotation marks.

Parenthetical, book:

( Nothing here , 1997)

Parenthetical, journal article:

(“Examination of parrotfish impact on coral reefs,” 2018)

Reference list entries

Reference list entries are also called full citations. There are four main details that most reference list entries have:

• The author field.
• The publication year.
• The title of the work ( italicized or in “quotation marks”).
• The source from where the reference can be obtained (e.g., URL, DOI, etc.).

Depending on the source type, you will also need additional details like volume number, publication title, contributors, medium, etc.

Examples of reference list entries

Below are a few examples of different types of reference entries along with their templates. The examples given are for one author. Note that “F” and “M” in the templates denote the first and the middle initials of an author’s name.

The title of the book is set in italics and sentence case.

Author Surname, F. M. (Publication Year). Title of the book . Publisher.

Ahmed, S. (2014). The cultural politics of emotion . Edinburgh University Press.

Journal article

The title of the article is in sentence case. The first word of a subtitle is capitalized. The journal title and the volume number are set in italics. If an article has a DOI it should always be included. Use “https://doi.org/” before the DOI. If there is no DOI for an online journal, include the URL instead. Do not use a period after the DOI or URL.

Author Surname, F. M. (Publication Year). Article title: Subtitle. Journal Title, Volume (issue), page range. URL or DOI

Collins, R. (2004). Rituals of solidarity and security in the wake of terrorist attack. Sociological Theory, 22 (1), 53–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2004.00204.x

Newspaper or magazine article

Newspaper and magazine articles take the same style. The title of the article is in plain text and sentence case; the title of the newspaper or the magazine is set in italics. Follow the format given in the template and example for setting the date, month, and year.

Surname, F. M. (Date of publication). Title of the article. Title of the Newspaper or Magazine . URL

TNN. (2021, July 18). Parents have a habit of comparing kids to others but you don’t need to. The Times of India . https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com//home/sunday-times/parents-have-a-habit-of-comparing-kids-to-others-but-you-dont-need-to/articleshow/84507857.cms

The webpage title is in plain text, while the Website name is set in italics. Follow the format given in the template and example for setting the date, month, year, and URL.

Author or Organization Name. (Year, Month Day of Publication ). Webpage title. Title of the Website. URL

Lamberth, H. (2021, August 12). Binge drinking is problem drinking: How to get back in control. PSYCOM . https://www.psycom.net/binge-drinking-problem-drinking

YouTube video

The video title is set in sentence case and italicized. The first word after a colon is capitalized. The word “Video” is enclosed in brackets after the video title. This is followed followed by the word “YouTube.” Finally, the link is given. Note that a period is not given after the URL.

Uploader’s name, F. (Year, Month Day Published). Video title [Video]. YouTube. URL

Ananta, P. (2021, February 21). APJ Abdul Kalam inspirational quotes [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjfL51RFL2k

Reference entries for different number of authors

The number of authors in the source decides how the author name(s) will be set in the references list. Here, you will see many journal references with different numbers of authors.

List the author name followed by the publication year.

Author Surname, F. M. (Publication Year). Article title: Subtitle. Journal Title, Volume (issue), page range.

Spitka, T. (2017). Mediating among mediators: Building a consensus in multilateral interventions. International Negotiation, 23 , 1–30.

Separate the author names by an ampersand. Use a comma between the first author’s initial and the ampersand symbol.

Author Surname, F. M., & Author Surname, F. (Publication Year). Article title: Subtitle. Journal Title, Volume (issue), page range. DOI or URL

Bernstein, B., & Solomon, J. (1999). Pedagogy, identity and the construction of a theory of symbolic control: Basil Bernstein questioned by Joseph Solomon. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20 (2), 265–279. https://doi:10.1080/01425699995443

When you add two organizations in the author field, do not use a comma before the ampersand.

Organization 1 & Organization 2. (Publication Year). Article title: Subtitle. Journal Title, Volume (issue), page range. DOI or URL

American Psychological Association & American Psychological Society. (2020). Psychology of children. Journal of Child Psychology, 34 (23), 1–12.

3–20 authors

List all author names. Do not forget to insert an “ampersand” before the last author. The example given below is for three authors.

Author Surname, F. M., Author Surname, F. M., & Author Surname, F. M. (Publication Year). Article title: Subtitle. Journal Title, Volume (issue), page range. DOI or URL

Pyysiäinen, J., Halpin, D., & Guilfoyle, A. (2017). Neoliberal governance and ‘responsibilization’ of agents: Reassessing the mechanisms of responsibility-shift in neoliberal discursive environments. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 18 (2), 215–235. https://doi:10.1080/1600910X.2017.1331858

More than 20 authors

List the names of the first 19 authors followed by an ellipsis. Add the final author name after the ellipsis but without the ampersand symbol before the last author name.

Author Surname1, F. M., Author Surname2, F. M., Author Surname3, F. M., Author Surname4, F. M., Author Surname5, F. M., Author Surname6, F. M., Author Surname7, F. M., Author Surname8, F. M., Author Surname9, F. M., Author Surname10, F. M., Author Surname11, F. M., Author Surname12, F. M., Author Surname13, F. M., Author Surname14, F. M., Author Surname15, F. M., Author Surname16, F. M., Author Surname17, F. M., Author Surname18, F. M.,  Author Surname19, F. M,¼ Last Author name, F. M. (Publication Year). Article title: Subtitle. Journal Title, Volume (issue), page range. DOI or URL

Fox, J., Harper, D., Bird, A., Kindler, F. A., Feng, H.-G., Seng, A. L., Sevel, K., Ed, E., Nell, A., Ten, T., Elin, K. J., Thomas, A., Thendy, S., Fall, W., Fint, E., Gurdy, A. K., Dondy, D., Egert, E., Nanda, A. L., ¼ Long, G.  (2015). Pedagogising knowledge: Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23 (4), 571–582.

For additional information on APA format, select from one of the source types below. For help creating APA citations, check out the BibMe APA citation generator.

Source Types:

• How to cite a Book in APA
• How to cite a Magazine in APA
• How to cite a Newspaper in APA
• How to cite a Website in APA
• How to cite a Journal Article in APA
• How to cite a Film in APA
• How to cite an Interview in APA
• How to cite a Lecture in APA
• How to cite a TV Show / Radio Broadcast in APA
• How to cite an Encyclopedia in APA
• How to cite a Photograph in APA
• APA 7 Updates

APA Format:

• In-Text Citation Basics
• Reference Page

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As per Section 8.17 from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , for any work that has three or more authors, the name of the first author and “et al.” should be used as in-text citation. The Latin phrase “et al” means “and others” and is used to reduce the citation length.

Example In-Text Citation Entry:

No stretch of reason can categorize cultural appropriation as imaginary (Rahim et al., 2020).

Sometimes, the same set of initial authors and the same publication year appear in a paper. In such rare circumstances, as per Section 8.18 of the APA manual, write out as many names as needed to differentiate between these similar references.

Example In-Text Citation Entries:

Miller, John, Reighstag et al. (2018)

Miller, John, Amudsen, et al. (2018)

As per Section 8.21 and Table 8.1 of the APA Publication Manual , a citation for a group author may be abbreviated in in-text citations. It is not compulsory to do so; however, if the group author is well known or if it appears at least thrice in the paper, then the name of the group may be abbreviated.

Parenthetical in-text citation template and example:

(Full Name of the Group [Abbreviation], year)

(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2018)

Whether it is a narrative or parenthetical in-text citation, the full name of the group should be mentioned in the first instance, along with the abbreviation.

Narrative in-text citation examples:

The American Psychological Association (APA, 2017) argues that… (first instance)

As per the APA (2017), it is standard practice that… (subsequent instances)

APA In-Text Citations and Sample Essay 7th Edition

This handout focuses on how to format in-text citations in APA.

Proper citation of sources is a two-part process . You must first cite each source in the body of your essay; these citations within the essay are called in-text citations . You MUST cite all quoted, paraphrased, or summarized words, ideas, and facts from sources. Without in-text citations, you are technically in danger of plagiarism, even if you have listed your sources at the end of the essay.

In-text citations point the reader to the sources’ information on the references page. The in-text citation typically includes the author's last name and the year of publication. If you use a direct quote, the page number is also provided.

More information can be found on p. 253 of the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

Citation Rules

Direct quotation with the author named in the text.

Heinze and Lu (2017) stated, “The NFL shifted its responses to institutional change around concussions significantly as the field itself evolved” (p. 509).

Note: The year of publication is listed in parenthesis after the names of the authors, and the page number is listed in parenthesis at the end of the quote.

Direct Quotation without the Author Named in the Text

As the NFL developed as an organization, it “shifted its responses to institutional change around concussions significantly” (Heinze & Lu, 2017, p. 509).

Note: At the end of the quote, the names of the authors, year of publication, and page number are listed in parenthesis.

Paraphrase with 1-2 Authors

As the NFL developed as an organization, its reactions toward concussions also transformed (Heinze & Lu, 2017).

Note: For paraphrases, page numbers are encouraged but not required.

Paraphrase with 3 or More Authors

To work toward solving the issue of violence in prisons begins with determining aspects that might connect with prisoners' violent conduct (Thomson et al., 2019).

Direct Quotation without an Author

The findings were astonishing "in a recent study of parent and adult child relationships" ("Parents and Their Children," 2007, p. 2).

Note: Since the author of the text is not stated, a shortened version of the title is used instead.

Secondary Sources

When using secondary sources, use the phrase "as cited in" and cite the secondary source on the References page.

In 1936, Keynes said, “governments should run deficits when the economy is slow to avoid unemployment” (as cited in Richardson, 2008, p. 257).

Long (Block) Quotations

When using direct quotations of 40 or more words, indent five spaces from the left margin without using quotation marks. The final period should come before the parenthetical citation.

At Meramec, an English department policy states:

To honor and protect their own work and that of others, all students must give credit to proprietary sources that are used for course work. It is assumed that any information that is not documented is either common knowledge in that field or the original work of that student. (St. Louis Community College, 2001, p. 1)

Website Citations

If citing a specific web document without a page number, include the name of the author, date, title of the section, and paragraph number in parentheses:

In America, “Two out of five deaths among U.S. teens are the result of a motor vehicle crash” (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2004, Overview section, para. 1).

Here is a print-friendly version of this content.

Learn more about the APA References page by reviewing this handout .

For information on STLCC's academic integrity policy, check out this webpage .

For additional information on APA, check out STLCC's LibGuide on APA .

Sample Essay

A sample APA essay is available at this link .

Home ➔ Citation Questions ➔ How to Cite an Article in an Essay? (APA and MLA)

How to Cite an Article in an Essay? (APA and MLA)

Before we get to all the different cases that change the way to cite an article in your essay, we must clarify a couple of things first.

• There are more than two citation styles out there. But, we will cover only APA and MLA because these are the most common ones.
• This article covers in-text citations, so it won’t go over the references page and how you should organize your sources there.

Note: For references, you can try our free online tools that support many styles — Citation Generators.

Usually, your assignment sheet instructions say what style you must stick to. If it doesn’t, ask your tutor for help.

MLA In-Text Citations (Modern Language Association)

Indicating your citations in the essay’s body is meant to be as short and as readable as possible. It’s quite different from the references pages where you indicate tons of details about the source. Your in-text citation is a link to the works cited page at the end of your paper.

There are two ways of using a quote in an essay MLA. The in-text method requires only the page number of the source used in parentheses at the end of the quote. The parenthetical one requires you to include both the author’s last name and the page number.

Using a Direct Quote

The author’s words are left unchanged and enclosed within quotation marks. Examples:

Use the author’s last name before the quote.

Smith states, “Citing an article in your essay correctly is fundamental if you want to avoid plagiarism” (26).

Don’t use the author’s last name before the quote.

The report states, “There are two ways of in-text citation” (Smith 26).

Use a lengthy excerpt (block quote) without quotation marks but with left indentation (half an inch). Moreover, note that you will have to place a period before the parentheses. A quote is regarded as long if it takes four or more lines in your essay.

Smith elaborates further: All the citation rules might seem too complicated, especially if you haven’t dealt with them before. One of the reasons for that could be the fact that students neglect to buy a corresponding style manual or to consult with their tutor. (26)

Note: If you refer to a web source or an article with no pagination, don’t mention the page number at all.

Paraphrasing or summarizing

When paraphrasing the source , you don’t have to use quotation marks:

According to Smith, you must learn how to cite a source in your essay not to plagiarize (26).

Sometimes, you might choose to paraphrase individual quotes from multiple pages. In such a case, you can indicate the pages or a page range separated by a comma like this: (Smith 26, 28, 31-33).

My source has more than one author

Case 1: two authors.

Just use “and” to separate them. For instance:

Moisson and Zakher have found that “Having a 20-minute nap during the day improves information retention by 500%” (127).

“Napping three times a week lowers the risk of dying of heart disease by 37%” (Moisson and Zakher 127).

Case 2: More than two authors

Mention the last name of the first author followed by “et al.” (which means “and others”). For example:

“Daytime napping brings many advantages” (Moisson et al. 127).

The author is unknown

The author’s name might be unknown. If it’s the case, use the first several words from the article’s title but omit “A,” “An,” or “The” at the beginning. It can be written in quotes or italics, depending on how it’s written in your list of references. The number of words you pick to use depends on the title. You want as many as to make it clear for the reader what source the quote is from. For example:

( Astrophysics 221) or (“Global Warming” 310)

What if I have two authors with the same surname?

To avoid confusion, use the author’s initials or their full names (if the initials are also identical) like this:

Some researchers claim that North America’s global warming early signs were enough to start taking measures (H. Black 22), others refuse to even acknowledge global warming as a planet-scale issue (T. Black 35).

MLA citation examples with references

Take a look at some more examples of MLA in-text citations with their respective reference entries.

Newspaper article

On October 1, 2019, Hanoi (Vietnam) became the leader in the list of cities with the highest levels of air pollution. (Smith 3)

Works Cited page

3. Smith, Thomas. “Hanoi Wrapped in Clouds.”  The Morning Sun  [Houston, TX] 1 Oct. 2019, p. 7.

Scholarly article

Features of the child’s interaction with their relatives, the degree of relatives’ responsiveness to the signals received from the child, and the completeness of satisfying their needs in many aspects determine the nature of relations with people formed from the first years of life. (Spencer 5)

5. Spencer, Laura. “Aggressive behavior in adolescents and the identity of the parents.”  Psychological Science and Education , vol. 50, no. 5, 2018, p. 14.

Magazine article

To restore the movement of qi energy, the doctor acts on certain acupuncture points — areas where the meridians come closest to the surface of the body. (Turnbull 5)

5. Turnbull, Katarina. “The Best Procedures for Your Vitality.”  The Health,  19 May. 2018, p. 70.

Journal article

The construction of the Okayama castle complex was completed in 1615, and the castle served as a residence for local daimyo (feudal lords) throughout the entire Edo period (XVII-XIX century).  (Gilliam 2)

1. Gilliam, Szymon. “Cities with Historic Gardens.”  Big in Japan,  3 Apr. 2019, p. 24.

Research article

Research on social networks in higher education institutions usually focuses on one of the two main groups of participants — teachers or students. (Kent 8)

8. Kent, Oscar. ” Social Networks of Students: Factors of Formation and Influence On Education.”  Education Today, vol.11, no. 2, 2018, p.31 .

APA In-Text Citations (American Psychological Association)

This style is the most commonly adopted one in the fields of health and social sciences. Remember to include all the articles you used in the references at the end of your essay .

To cite in an essay, using APA style, you will need to include the author’s name, the date of publication, and the page number where you found the information.

If compared to MLA, APA style is a bit more complicated and requires the writer to specify more details. Apart from the author’s last name and the page number, you’d also need to include the year of publication.

Smith states (2005), “Citing an article in your essay properly is essential to avoid plagiarism” (p. 26).

The manual states, “There are two ways of in-text citation” (Smith, 2005, p. 26).

In APA, a quote is recognized as long if it’s over 40 words. You don’t need to use quotation marks, and the indentation here is five spaces from the left margin. Example:

Smith (2005) elaborates on this issue: All the citation rules might be very confusing, especially if you haven’t dealt with them before. One of the reasons for that could be the fact that students neglect to buy a corresponding style manual or to consult with their tutor. (p. 26)

There are two ways you can format paraphrasing:

According to Smith (2005), you must be aware of citation rules to avoid plagiarism in your essay.

You must learn how to cite properly in your paper to avoid plagiarism-related issues (Smith, 2005, p. 26).

Use “and” to separate them in text and use an ampersand (&) to separate them in parentheses. For instance:

The result of research by Crompton and Gibson (2009) suggests that… (Crompton & Gibson, 2009, p. 55).

Case 2: 3–5 authors

Mention all authors the first time you cite them. For all other instances, write only the last name of the first author and add “et al.”

(Foster, Peattie, Rajagopalan, Frankfeldt, 2001) (Foster et al., 2001)

Case 3: 6+ authors

Use the first author’s name with “et al.” after it.

Hanks et al. (2008) suggest that… (Hanks et al., 2008, p. 43)

If the author’s name is unknown, use the first word or words of the source’s title. Titles of reports and books must be written in italics or underlined, whereas article titles and chapters should be put inside quotation marks.

Similar results were received after all students learned more about citing sources in essays (“Citation Guide,” 2016).

APA citation examples with references

Check more examples of in-text citations in APA style with their corresponding references.

Earlier, journalists reported on the British Prime Minister’s plan to establish centers for customs clearance of goods across the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and to leave the duty-free regime for food and agricultural products. (Morton, 2019)

Morton, M. (2019, October 11). New Brexit Agreement Proposals. The Day.

This position is quite common in the context of human study; it constitutes the ideology of most modern psychological assistance services and underlies the technology and many methods of psychotherapeutic and psychocorrectional work. (Watt, 2019)

Watt, A. (2019). Three Paradigms in Psychology – Three Strategies for Psychological Impact. The Art of Psychology, 9 (7), 24.

16-year-old Greta insists that, according to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the governments of the 195 countries that have signed this document are obliged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere immediately. (Iles, 2019)

Iles, V. (2019, September 30). Greta Tunberg’s Stolen Childhood. Generation Today, 127 (234), 17. https://doi.org/10.1416/generation.aay3410

The most accepted ways in which graduates respond to the conflicts are “Competition” (27%) and “Cooperation” (24%). (Reide, 2019)

Reide, B. (2019). Psychological Features of Communication and Response in Conflict Situations In The Professional Education System. Interscience, 12(5), 36.

It is surprising that 78% of respondents neglect sleep and stay up late on the Internet, forget about eating, personal hygiene, household duties, study, etc. (Benjamin, 2018)

Benjamin, P. (2018). Internet Addiction in Teenagers. Cyber Community, 7 (6), 41. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm00002415

You will find a lot more rules related to the citation style you’re using because there are many types of sources and exceptions to those sources. So, by acquiring a fresh style manual, you’ll be on the safe side when it comes to citing and paraphrasing in your essay.

The list of references

• Research and Citation — The Purdue University Online Writing Lab
• Citation Guide (MLA and APA) — Lane Community College
• MLA Citation Guide (8th Edition): In-Text Citation — Columbia College

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APA 7th Edition Citation Guide In-Text Citations

What is an in-text citation.

In-text citations help you incorporate information from your research into the body of your essays while giving the original authors credit for their ideas. You will need to include in-text citations every time you refer to, quote from, paraphrase, or summarize a given source. You will also need to cite facts, figures, images, video, audio, or any other element you include in your work that you did not create yourself. 

There are two main ways to incorporate information from sources into your essay: direct quotes and paraphrasing.

What Doesn't Need a Citation?

You do not need to cite your own ideas, opinions, or experiences.

You also do not need to cite things that are common knowledge (something the average person would be expected to know). Some examples include: the current president's name, who invented the light bulb, the capital of South Korea, there are twelve months in a year, etc. If you are unsure if something is common knowledge, it is safer to include a citation.

What are Direct Quotes?

Direct quotes are when someone else's words are copied word-for-word into your paper. Since you are using someone else's exact words, it's even more important to include a citation telling the reader where this information came from.

While it is recommended to use direct quotes sparingly ( paraphrasing is another method ) using the exact text from an article or book is still a great way to share an idea. For example, direct quotes are useful when an author says something especially memorable or you want to respond directly to something in your own paper.

Shorter Direct Quotes

Direct quotes that are shorter than 40 words require quotation marks around the entire quote. When using a direct quote, be sure to cite the author, year, and page number. 

An important part of self-care is being "aware of and accepting your own thoughts and feelings" (Pate, 2020, p. 2).

Pate (2020) listed some self-care activities such as "jogging, yoga, exercise, listening or dancing to music, taking a walk outdoors, or other relaxing or invigorating activities" (p. 5).

Block Quotes

Block quotes are used when a direct quote is longer than 40 words. A sentence setting up the quote ends in a colon and is then followed by the quoted text. Rather than using quotation marks, the quote is indented, double-spaced, and cited without a period at the end. 

Pate (2020), described the importance of boundaries: Having healthy boundaries means knowing what your limits are and clearly communicating what you will and will not allow, as well as what you need. Establishing clear and healthy boundaries can support health and wellness for all. Some people need more connection and interaction — physically, socially, or mentally — while others need more quiet time and solitude. It’s important to understand what you need and clearly communicate that to others. (p. 5)

The meaning behind and importance of boundaries can be described with the following: Having healthy boundaries means knowing what your limits are and clearly communicating what you will and will not allow, as well as what you need. Establishing clear and healthy boundaries can support health and wellness for all. Some people need more connection and interaction — physically, socially, or mentally — while others need more quiet time and solitude. It’s important to understand what you need and clearly communicate that to others. (Pate, 2020, p. 5)

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is when you take another person's words or ideas and put them into your own words. Even though you are not directly quoting someone else, credit still needs to be given.

Paraphrasing allows you to summarize and make connections between several different sources. Paraphrasing also keeps your paper in your own "voice" and avoids interrupting the flow of your writing with frequent direct quotes.

Be sure to use your own words and give credit for the idea to the original source. Page numbers are not a requirement for paraphrases but are worth considering if they would help the reader find what you are referring to.

Self-care involves being aware of one's own thoughts, feelings, and conditions as well as being purposeful in taking steps to maintain and improve mental and physical health (Pate, 2020).

Pate (2020) advocated for the importance of self-care, which requires a person to have an awareness of their own physical and mental state, which is then used to take deliberate steps in maintaining or improving their health.

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Citations: Citing Sources in APA Style: Citing Sources in APA

Citing sources in apa.

• Automatically Creating Citations

According to APA 7th Edition guidelines you need to find out as much information as you can about who created and published a source and when. You communicate this to your audience through in-text and Reference List citations which your readers can look up themselves.

Recommended sources for help with APA style guidelines:

• APAstyle.org Free online help directly from the American Psychological Association. Scroll down to "Quick Answers" section for help with references and formatting.
• Purdue OWL APA Formatting & Style Guide Free APA help online from Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL). Provides examples and instructions for commonly cited materials, as well as a sample APA paper and tips for avoiding plagiarism. The left-hand menu has guidance for both in-text citations and the references list at the end of your paper.

Below are a just a few examples of APA citations. There are many situations which you might run into that don't fit the formats listed below - for more help visit the APA website to learn about specific rules and tips! 

Format (Multiple Authors)

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the article. Name of the Periodical, volume (issue), #–#. https://doi.org/xxxx

Albert, R., McKnight, A. G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Thoughts in literature: A review of literature that presents ethnic and racial representation in groups across Oregon. Psychology of Popular Media Culture ,  8 (4), 210–217. https://doi.org/10.8909/ppm0000345

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Copyright Year).  Title of the book  (6th ed.). Publisher. DOI or URL

Sapolsky, R. M. (2017).  Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. Penguin Books. 

Webpage on a Website 

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date Published).  Title of the webpage . Publisher of the Website. URL

Kuzmich, F. D. (2019, April 1).  Nursing mental health . OER Commons. https://www.oercommonly.edu/authors/89037-nursing-mental-health/view

Newspaper Articles

Author, A. A., & Author B, B,. (Date Published). Title of news article. Newspaper Publisher . URL

Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting?  The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/health/memory-forgetting-psychology.html

Library Help

APA style requires that a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) be included in your citation, if available. To see if a journal article has been assigned a DOI, you can look it up on CrossRef or Ask a Librarian .

For more information about the DOI system, see http://www.doi.org .

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APA Citations 7th Edition

• Why, When, and How to Cite
• General Tips & Sample Reference List
• Cite Books, Edited Book Chapters, and Entries From Reference Books
• Cite Journal, Magazine, Newspaper, and Blog Articles
• Cite Audiovisual, Audio, and Visual Works
• Cite Social Media and Webpages; and Guidance on Websites
• In-Text Citations
• Additional Help

Why to Cite

There are many reasons to cite your sources:

• to give credit to authors or artists whose work you have used
• to allow people who are reviewing your work to check your sources
• to show readers how you came up with your arguments or ideas
• to provide scholars with other sources for their research
• to avoid plagiarism

For more information about the dangers of plagiarism see the APA Blog .

For a quick overview of why  and when  to cite, view this short video, Cite a Source: How and Why You Should Do It .

Test your understanding of plagiarism by taking this short Plagiarism Quiz .

What you don't know CAN hurt you!

When to Cite

Cite a source when:

• you copy information exactly from it; t his includes primary sources, such as when you have interviewed someone or are referring to a work of art or image that you are referencing
• you paraphrase, summarize or use your own words to describe ideas from a work
• you cite statistics, data or other numerical information that was compiled by someone other than yourself.

​ NOTE: The exception to the rule is that you do not have to cite a source when you are using what is considered "common knowledge," such as a date in history, basic biographical facts about a prominent person, or the dates and circumstances of major historical events (e.g. there are 12 months in a year, the planets revolve around the sun, the American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, etc.). If the facts are in dispute, it is best to cite sources.

How to Cite

The essential components of APA citation style are the reference list and related in-text citations. These two components work together to allow readers to find the exact sources used by the writer, as well as where in the paper these sources were used.

The reference list is the master list of all sources used, and is located after the body of the paper. Each source has its own entry on the list and is written in a highly stylized format. The four basic elements of a reference are:

Author. (Date). Title. Source.

For example, here is a citation for an article from a magazine which contains the four basic elements along with additional elements needed to accurately describe a magazine article:

Chesney, R., & Citron, D. (2019, January/February). Deepfakes and the new disinformation war: The coming age of post-truth geopolitics. Foreign Affairs , 98 (1), 147–155.

When sources are used in the body of the paper, in-text citations are the link back to the exact entry for the source appearing on the reference list. For example, when the above source is quoted in the body of the paper it includes an embedded in-text citation:

Chesney (2019) speculates that "as deepfake technology develops and spreads, the current disinformation wars may soon look like the propaganda equivalent of the era of swords and shields."

Kinds of Sources

How to cite a source in the reference list is determined by the kind of source it is. APA citation style organizes sources into reference groups , then categories , and then types . The essential groups /categories / types covered in this guide are:

The one remaining group APA recognizes, "data sets, software, and tests," is not covered in this guide.

For more in-depth information on APA groups / categories / types, with examples, visit this APA Style Blog page .

NOTE: When selecting a group / category / type for a source, what group / category / type a source falls into is of more importance than how it happened to be accessed. For example, if you wanted to cite an article from a journal, when selecting a category/group/type the deciding factor would be that it was an article from a journal, not that you read it in print, or in a library research database, or on a website.  

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A Quick Guide to Referencing | Cite Your Sources Correctly

Referencing means acknowledging the sources you have used in your writing. Including references helps you support your claims and ensures that you avoid plagiarism .

There are many referencing styles, but they usually consist of two things:

• A citation wherever you refer to a source in your text.
• A reference list or bibliography at the end listing full details of all your sources.

The most common method of referencing in UK universities is Harvard style , which uses author-date citations in the text. Our free Harvard Reference Generator automatically creates accurate references in this style.

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Table of contents

Referencing styles, citing your sources with in-text citations, creating your reference list or bibliography, harvard referencing examples, frequently asked questions about referencing.

Each referencing style has different rules for presenting source information. For in-text citations, some use footnotes or endnotes , while others include the author’s surname and date of publication in brackets in the text.

The reference list or bibliography is presented differently in each style, with different rules for things like capitalisation, italics, and quotation marks in references.

Your university will usually tell you which referencing style to use; they may even have their own unique style. Always follow your university’s guidelines, and ask your tutor if you are unsure. The most common styles are summarised below.

Harvard referencing, the most commonly used style at UK universities, uses author–date in-text citations corresponding to an alphabetical bibliography or reference list at the end.

Harvard Referencing Guide

Vancouver referencing, used in biomedicine and other sciences, uses reference numbers in the text corresponding to a numbered reference list at the end.

Vancouver Referencing Guide

APA referencing, used in the social and behavioural sciences, uses author–date in-text citations corresponding to an alphabetical reference list at the end.

APA Referencing Guide APA Reference Generator

MHRA referencing, used in the humanities, uses footnotes in the text with source information, in addition to an alphabetised bibliography at the end.

MHRA Referencing Guide

OSCOLA referencing, used in law, uses footnotes in the text with source information, and an alphabetical bibliography at the end in longer texts.

OSCOLA Referencing Guide

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

In-text citations should be used whenever you quote, paraphrase, or refer to information from a source (e.g. a book, article, image, website, or video).

Quoting and paraphrasing

Quoting is when you directly copy some text from a source and enclose it in quotation marks to indicate that it is not your own writing.

Paraphrasing is when you rephrase the original source into your own words. In this case, you don’t use quotation marks, but you still need to include a citation.

In most referencing styles, page numbers are included when you’re quoting or paraphrasing a particular passage. If you are referring to the text as a whole, no page number is needed.

In-text citations

In-text citations are quick references to your sources. In Harvard referencing, you use the author’s surname and the date of publication in brackets.

Up to three authors are included in a Harvard in-text citation. If the source has more than three authors, include the first author followed by ‘ et al. ‘

The point of these citations is to direct your reader to the alphabetised reference list, where you give full information about each source. For example, to find the source cited above, the reader would look under ‘J’ in your reference list to find the title and publication details of the source.

Placement of in-text citations

In-text citations should be placed directly after the quotation or information they refer to, usually before a comma or full stop. If a sentence is supported by multiple sources, you can combine them in one set of brackets, separated by a semicolon.

If you mention the author’s name in the text already, you don’t include it in the citation, and you can place the citation immediately after the name.

• Another researcher warns that the results of this method are ‘inconsistent’ (Singh, 2018, p. 13) .
• Previous research has frequently illustrated the pitfalls of this method (Singh, 2018; Jones, 2016) .
• Singh (2018, p. 13) warns that the results of this method are ‘inconsistent’.

The terms ‘bibliography’ and ‘reference list’ are sometimes used interchangeably. Both refer to a list that contains full information on all the sources cited in your text. Sometimes ‘bibliography’ is used to mean a more extensive list, also containing sources that you consulted but did not cite in the text.

A reference list or bibliography is usually mandatory, since in-text citations typically don’t provide full source information. For styles that already include full source information in footnotes (e.g. OSCOLA and Chicago Style ), the bibliography is optional, although your university may still require you to include one.

Format of the reference list

Reference lists are usually alphabetised by authors’ last names. Each entry in the list appears on a new line, and a hanging indent is applied if an entry extends onto multiple lines.

Different source information is included for different source types. Each style provides detailed guidelines for exactly what information should be included and how it should be presented.

Below are some examples of reference list entries for common source types in Harvard style.

• Chapter of a book
• Journal article

Your university should tell you which referencing style to follow. If you’re unsure, check with a supervisor. Commonly used styles include:

• Harvard referencing , the most commonly used style in UK universities.
• MHRA , used in humanities subjects.
• APA , used in the social sciences.
• Vancouver , used in biomedicine.
• OSCOLA , used in law.

Your university may have its own referencing style guide.

If you are allowed to choose which style to follow, we recommend Harvard referencing, as it is a straightforward and widely used style.

References should be included in your text whenever you use words, ideas, or information from a source. A source can be anything from a book or journal article to a website or YouTube video.

If you don’t acknowledge your sources, you can get in trouble for plagiarism .

To avoid plagiarism , always include a reference when you use words, ideas or information from a source. This shows that you are not trying to pass the work of others off as your own.

You must also properly quote or paraphrase the source. If you’re not sure whether you’ve done this correctly, you can use the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker to find and correct any mistakes.

Harvard referencing uses an author–date system. Sources are cited by the author’s last name and the publication year in brackets. Each Harvard in-text citation corresponds to an entry in the alphabetised reference list at the end of the paper.

Vancouver referencing uses a numerical system. Sources are cited by a number in parentheses or superscript. Each number corresponds to a full reference at the end of the paper.

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Essay Writing: In-Text Citations

• Essay Writing Basics
• Purdue OWL Page on Writing Your Thesis This link opens in a new window
• Paragraphs and Transitions
• How to Tell if a Website is Legitimate This link opens in a new window
• Formatting Your References Page
• Cite a Website
• Common Grammatical and Mechanical Errors
• Additional Resources
• Proofread Before You Submit Your Paper
• Structuring the 5-Paragraph Essay

In-text Citations

What are In-Text Citations?

You must cite (give credit) all information sources used in your essay or research paper whenever and wherever you use them.

When citing sources in the text of your paper, you must list:

● The author’s last name

● The year  the information was published.

Types of In-Text Citations: Narrative vs Parenthetical

A  narrative citation gives the author's name as part of the sentence .

• Example of a Narrative Citation: According to Edwards (2017) , a lthough Smith and Carlos's protest at the 1968 Olympics initially drew widespread criticism, it also led to fundamental reforms in the organizational structure of American amateur athletics.

A  parenthetical citation puts the source information in parentheses—first or last—but does not include it in  the narrative  flow.

• Example of a Parenthetical Citation:  Although Tommie Smith and John Carlos paid a heavy price in the immediate aftermath of the protests, they were later vindicated by society at large (Edwards, 2017) .

Full citation for this source (this belongs on the Reference Page of your research paper or essay):

Edwards, H. (2017).  The Revolt of the Black Athlete: 50th Anniversary Edition.  University of Illinois Press.

Sample In-text Citations

Note: This example is a  direct quote. It is an exact quotation directly from the text of the article. All direct quotes should appear in quotation marks: "...."

Try keeping direct quotes to a minimum in your writing. You need to show your understanding of the source material by being able to paraphrase or summarize it. 

List the author’s last name only (no initials) and the year the information was published, like this:

(Dodge, 2008 ). ( Author , Date).

IF you use a direct quote, add the page number to your citation, like this: 

( Dodge , 2008 , p. 125 ).

( Author , Date , page number )

What information should I cite in my paper/essay?

Credit these sources when you mention their information in any way: direct quotation, paraphrase, or summarize.

What should you credit?

Any information that you learned from another source, including:

● statistics

EXCEPTION: Information that is common knowledge: e.g., The Bronx is a borough of New York City.

Quick Sheet: APA 7 Citations

Quick help with apa 7 citations.

• Quick Sheet - Citing Journal Articles, Websites & Videos, and Creating In-Text Citations A quick guide to the most frequently-used types of APA 7 citations.

In-text Citation Tutorial

• Formatting In-text Citations, Full Citations, and Block Quotes In APA 7 Style This presentation will help you understand when, why, and how to use in-text citations in your APA style paper.

Download the In-text Citations presentation  (above)  for an in-depth look at how to correctly cite your sources in the text of your paper.

SIgnal Phrase Activity

Paraphrasing activity from the excelsior owl, in-text citation quiz.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, citing sources in college essays: when and how.

In our school papers, we need to cite sources to avoid plagiarism, but I'm not sure how that works in college essays. If I refer to a work of literature or a historical event, should I include citations? If so, how do you properly cite sources within the context of a personal essay?

Hello there! Great question! Yes, in academic writing, citing sources is an absolute must to avoid plagiarism and to give proper credit to original ideas. However, the personal essay portion of college applications is quite different. It’s all about your personal experiences, views, and aspirations. Typically, you don't need to cite sources as you would in a research paper.

If you mention a work of literature or a historical event, it's usually because it has personal significance to your life or aspirations. In those cases, you can simply reference the work or event naturally as part of your narrative. For example, if discussing the impact of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' on your worldview, just mentioning the book and its influence on you is sufficient, without needing a formal citation as you would in an academic paper.

However, if your essay takes on a more academic tone and you include specific quotes or data, then it’s advisable to briefly credit the source, maybe in parentheses. Just remember that the admissions essay is more about your story and reflections than scholastic formality. Good luck with your essay!

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More From Forbes

Google notebooklm: 5 reasons students will love it.

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Google NotebookLM: 5 Reasons Educators Will Love It

Google's latest offering might just be a game-changer for students.

I recently sat down with Steven Johnson , co-creator of NotebookLM and editorial director of Google Labs . Johnson, a prolific author on innovation with multiple New York Times bestselling books to his name, has turned his attention to transforming how we interact with information in the digital age. Google Labs, an incubator created to test and publicly demonstrate new projects, has become the perfect playground for Johnson's innovative ideas.

NotebookLM, their latest brainchild, is set to transform how students interact with information. You're probably wondering what makes this tool different from the myriad of AI assistants flooding the market.

1. Source Grounding: Trust In A World Of AI Hallucinations

A lot of people rightfully have an issue trusting the responses of AI.

NotebookLM's source grounding feature is a breath of fresh air. "One of the core fundamental principles of NotebookLM is what we call source grounding," Johnson explained to me. This feature allows students to define and upload relevant sources, ensuring that the AI's responses are firmly rooted in trusted material.

This means you can confidently use AI without worrying about being led astray by fabricated information. "You'll be able to ask questions and learn and explore and get explanations based on the particular reading for the class,'" Johnson elaborated.

WWE SmackDown Results, Winners And Grades As The Bloodline Destroys Paul Heyman

Martin mull dead: the ‘fernwood 2 night’ and ‘roseanne’ star was 80, biggest surprises from round 1 of the 2024 nhl draft, 2. advanced citation system: fostering academic integrity.

NotebookLM's citation system is a scholar's dream come true.

Johnson proudly stated, "We now have this very advanced citation system." The tool provides inline citations for each statement, allowing users to hover over or click on citations to see the original source material. This feature not only promotes academic integrity but also teaches students the importance of proper citation. It's like having a built-in research assistant that always remembers to cite its sources!

3. Multilingual Support: Breaking Down Language Barriers

With support for 38 languages, NotebookLM is truly a global tool.

Johnson shared an exciting use case about people in Japan: "They upload documents in English and just have a chat with the model about them entirely in Japanese." This feature opens up a world of possibilities for language learning and international collaboration. Students can now easily work with multilingual resources. Students who are not studying in their first language can interact with sources in their native language.

4. Enhanced Understanding: A Tool Optimized For Learning

At its core, NotebookLM is designed to help users understand complex material.

As Johnson put it, "Notebook LM is a tool that's optimized for helping you understand material." It does this with various modalities, including chat interfaces, note-taking features and source material exploration. Johnson emphasized, "We have tools that help us edit our photos, and we have tools that help us do spreadsheets. This is a tool for understanding, and we haven't had a lot of software in that mode to date, in part because we didn't have AI at this level of sophistication."

5. Automated Study Aids: Saving Time, Boosting Efficiency

One of NotebookLM's most exciting features is its ability to generate study aids automatically.

Johnson enthuses, "You just upload a bunch of things, you hit study guide, and voila—you'll get this exhaustive summary with the quizzes and all this kind of amazing stuff." This feature includes short answer questions with an answer key, suggested long-form essay questions and a glossary of key terms. Imagine being able to create comprehensive study guides in mere seconds. This feature could dramatically reduce prep time for students, allowing more focus on learning rather than organizing materials.

NotebookLM Goes Beyond Simple Information Retrieval

It can help users make connections between ideas and spark innovation. Johnson explains, "One of the options you'll see is 'suggest related ideas.' So it will take the passage you've just written and then go through all the attached selected sources, and it will say, 'Oh, you just wrote this thing about ant colonies, and that actually relates to this other thing about collective intelligence, and also this other thing that was written about evolutionary psychology.'"

This feature could be invaluable for students working on research projects or trying to generate new ideas for projects or assignments.

Looking To The Future

While NotebookLM is currently available for users 18 and older, Google is exploring ways to make it accessible for younger students. "We definitely think it has fantastic high school use for sure," Johnson notes. "We would definitely be interested in trying to figure out how to let younger people into it."

As AI continues to reshape education, tools like NotebookLM are paving the way for more efficient, effective and engaging learning experiences. By addressing common concerns about AI in education, such as accuracy, citation and language barriers, while also providing time-saving features for educators, NotebookLM could indeed be the AI assistant that wins over even the most tech-skeptic students.

Johnson sums up the potential impact: "It's a wonderful tool for students. Just upload your syllabus and then you can brainstorm ideas for assignments. It's just a great kind of generator of first drafts. Then you can go in and fix it or revise it, but you get ideas based on your sources so quickly. It's very powerful that way."

As we navigate the future of education, one thing is clear: the potential for innovation and improved learning outcomes is enormous. The question is, how will you harness it?

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New Hampshire teacher says student she drove to abortion clinic was 18, denies law was broken

A hearing is scheduled for July 3, five days before the teacher is set to begin a new job.

By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A private school teacher who says she was fired after driving an 18-year-old student to get an abortion is suing New Hampshire’s Department of Education and officials she says falsely suggested she circumvented state law.

New Hampshire law requires parents to receive written notice at least 48 hours before an abortion is performed on an unemancipated minor. But in this case, the student wasn’t living with her parents and was a legal adult, according to the lawsuit filed Monday.

The teacher, who filed the suit as “Jane Doe,” said she provided the student with contact information for a community health center last fall when the student disclosed her suspected pregnancy and later gave her a ride to the appointment in October. The school fired her within days and referred the matter to the Department of Education, which revoked her teaching license earlier this month.

The lawsuit says the department exceeded its authority and violated her due process rights by revoking her credentials without a fair and impartial process. And it accuses Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut of pushing a false narrative of her conduct via an opinion piece he published in April.

The essay, titled “Thank God Someone is Looking Out for the Children,” was published in response to New Hampshire Public Radio reports critical of the commissioner. In it, Edelblut asked rhetorically whether the department should “turn a blind eye” when “allegedly, an educator lies by calling in sick so they can take a student – without parental knowledge – to get an abortion.”

According to the lawsuit, department officials knew for months prior to the essay’s publication that the student in question was an adult and thus not subject to the parental notification law.

Kimberly Houghton, spokesperson for the department, declined to comment on its investigation of the teacher and referred questions about the lawsuit to the attorney general’s office. Michael Garrity, spokesperson for that agency, said Wednesday that officials are reviewing it and will respond in due course. Attorneys for the teacher did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The teacher’s firing was first reported last week by The Boston Globe, based on investigatory records it requested from the Education Department. The lawsuit said the department’s “biased and stilted disclosure” of information that should have remained confidential until the case was settled created a misleading narrative that damaged the teacher’s reputation and put her at risk.

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• How to Quote | Citing Quotes in APA, MLA & Chicago

How to Quote | Citing Quotes in APA, MLA & Chicago

Published on April 15, 2022 by Shona McCombes and Jack Caulfield. Revised on May 31, 2023.

Quoting means copying a passage of someone else’s words and crediting the source. To quote a source, you must ensure:

• The quoted text is enclosed in quotation marks or formatted as a block quote
• The original author is correctly cited
• The text is identical to the original

The exact format of a quote depends on its length and on which citation style you are using. Quoting and citing correctly is essential to avoid plagiarism which is easy to detect with a good plagiarism checker .

Table of contents

How to cite a quote in apa, mla and chicago, introducing quotes, quotes within quotes, shortening or altering a quote, block quotes, when should i use quotes, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about quoting sources.

Every time you quote, you must cite the source correctly . This looks slightly different depending on the citation style you’re using. Three of the most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

Citing a quote in APA Style

To cite a direct quote in APA , you must include the author’s last name, the year, and a page number, all separated by commas . If the quote appears on a single page, use “p.”; if it spans a page range, use “pp.”

An APA in-text citation can be parenthetical or narrative. In a parenthetical citation , you place all the information in parentheses after the quote. In a narrative citation , you name the author in your sentence (followed by the year), and place the page number after the quote.

Punctuation marks such as periods and commas are placed after the citation, not within the quotation marks .

• Evolution is a gradual process that “can act only by very short and slow steps” (Darwin, 1859, p. 510) .
• Darwin (1859) explains that evolution “can act only by very short and slow steps” (p. 510) .

Complete guide to APA

Citing a quote in mla style.

An MLA in-text citation includes only the author’s last name and a page number. As in APA, it can be parenthetical or narrative, and a period (or other punctuation mark) appears after the citation.

• Evolution is a gradual process that “can act only by very short and slow steps” (Darwin 510) .
• Darwin explains that evolution “can act only by very short and slow steps” (510) .

Complete guide to MLA

Citing a quote in chicago style.

Chicago style uses Chicago footnotes to cite sources. A note, indicated by a superscript number placed directly after the quote, specifies the author, title, and page number—or sometimes fuller information .

Unlike with parenthetical citations, in this style, the period or other punctuation mark should appear within the quotation marks, followed by the footnote number.

Complete guide to Chicago style

Scribbr Citation Checker New

The AI-powered Citation Checker helps you avoid common mistakes such as:

• Missing commas and periods
• Incorrect usage of “et al.”
• Ampersands (&) in narrative citations
• Missing reference entries

Make sure you integrate quotes properly into your text by introducing them in your own words, showing the reader why you’re including the quote and providing any context necessary to understand it.  Don’t  present quotations as stand-alone sentences.

There are three main strategies you can use to introduce quotes in a grammatically correct way:

• Add an introductory sentence
• Use an introductory signal phrase
• Integrate the quote into your own sentence

The following examples use APA Style citations, but these strategies can be used in all styles.

Introductory sentence

Introduce the quote with a full sentence ending in a colon . Don’t use a colon if the text before the quote isn’t a full sentence.

If you name the author in your sentence, you may use present-tense verbs , such as “states,” “argues,” “explains,” “writes,” or “reports,” to describe the content of the quote.

• In Denmark, a recent poll shows that: “A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters” (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• In Denmark, a recent poll shows that support for the EU has grown since the Brexit vote: “A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters” (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• Levring (2018) reports that support for the EU has grown since the Brexit vote: “A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters” (p. 3).

Introductory signal phrase

You can also use a signal phrase that mentions the author or source, but doesn’t form a full sentence. In this case, you follow the phrase with a comma instead of a colon.

• According to a recent poll, “A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters” (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• As Levring (2018) explains, “A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters” (p. 3).

Integrated into your own sentence

To quote a phrase that doesn’t form a full sentence, you can also integrate it as part of your sentence, without any extra punctuation .

• A recent poll suggests that EU membership “would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters” in a referendum (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• Levring (2018) reports that EU membership “would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters” in a referendum (p. 3).

When you quote text that itself contains another quote, this is called a nested quotation or a quote within a quote. It may occur, for example, when quoting dialogue from a novel.

To distinguish this quote from the surrounding quote, you enclose it in single (instead of double) quotation marks (even if this involves changing the punctuation from the original text). Make sure to close both sets of quotation marks at the appropriate moments.

Note that if you only quote the nested quotation itself, and not the surrounding text, you can just use double quotation marks.

• Carraway introduces his narrative by quoting his father: “ “ Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, ” he told me, “ just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had ” ” (Fitzgerald 1).
• Carraway introduces his narrative by quoting his father: “‘Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had ” (Fitzgerald 1).
• Carraway introduces his narrative by quoting his father: “‘Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had’” (Fitzgerald 1).
• Carraway begins by quoting his father’s invocation to “remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had” (Fitzgerald 1).

Note:  When the quoted text in the source comes from another source, it’s best to just find that original source in order to quote it directly. If you can’t find the original source, you can instead cite it indirectly .

Often, incorporating a quote smoothly into your text requires you to make some changes to the original text. It’s fine to do this, as long as you clearly mark the changes you’ve made to the quote.

Shortening a quote

If some parts of a passage are redundant or irrelevant, you can shorten the quote by removing words, phrases, or sentences and replacing them with an ellipsis (…). Put a space before and after the ellipsis.

Be careful that removing the words doesn’t change the meaning. The ellipsis indicates that some text has been removed, but the shortened quote should still accurately represent the author’s point.

Altering a quote

You can add or replace words in a quote when necessary. This might be because the original text doesn’t fit grammatically with your sentence (e.g., it’s in a different verb tense), or because extra information is needed to clarify the quote’s meaning.

Use brackets to distinguish words that you have added from words that were present in the original text.

The Latin term “ sic ” is used to indicate a (factual or grammatical) mistake in a quotation. It shows the reader that the mistake is from the quoted material, not a typo of your own.

In some cases, it can be useful to italicize part of a quotation to add emphasis, showing the reader that this is the key part to pay attention to. Use the phrase “emphasis added” to show that the italics were not part of the original text.

You usually don’t need to use brackets to indicate minor changes to punctuation or capitalization made to ensure the quote fits the style of your text.

If you quote more than a few lines from a source, you must format it as a block quote . Instead of using quotation marks, you set the quote on a new line and indent it so that it forms a separate block of text.

Block quotes are cited just like regular quotes, except that if the quote ends with a period, the citation appears after the period.

To the end of his days Bilbo could never remember how he found himself outside, without a hat, a walking-stick or any money, or anything that he usually took when he went out; leaving his second breakfast half-finished and quite unwashed-up, pushing his keys into Gandalf’s hands, and running as fast as his furry feet could carry him down the lane, past the great Mill, across The Water, and then on for a mile or more. (16)

Avoid relying too heavily on quotes in academic writing . To integrate a source , it’s often best to paraphrase , which means putting the passage in your own words. This helps you integrate information smoothly and keeps your own voice dominant.

However, there are some situations in which quoting is more appropriate.

When focusing on language

If you want to comment on how the author uses language (for example, in literary analysis ), it’s necessary to quote so that the reader can see the exact passage you are referring to.

When giving evidence

To convince the reader of your argument, interpretation or position on a topic, it’s often helpful to include quotes that support your point. Quotes from primary sources (for example, interview transcripts or historical documents) are especially credible as evidence.

When presenting an author’s position or definition

When you’re referring to secondary sources such as scholarly books and journal articles, try to put others’ ideas in your own words when possible.

But if a passage does a great job at expressing, explaining, or defining something, and it would be very difficult to paraphrase without changing the meaning or losing the weakening the idea’s impact, it’s worth quoting directly.

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• ChatGPT vs human editor
• ChatGPT citations
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Using ChatGPT for your studies
• What is ChatGPT?
• Chicago style
• Paraphrasing
• Critical thinking

 Plagiarism

• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Consequences of plagiarism
• Common knowledge

A quote is an exact copy of someone else’s words, usually enclosed in quotation marks and credited to the original author or speaker.

In academic writing , there are three main situations where quoting is the best choice:

• To analyze the author’s language (e.g., in a literary analysis essay )
• To give evidence from primary sources
• To accurately present a precise definition or argument

Don’t overuse quotes; your own voice should be dominant. If you just want to provide information from a source, it’s usually better to paraphrase or summarize .

Every time you quote a source , you must include a correctly formatted in-text citation . This looks slightly different depending on the citation style .

For example, a direct quote in APA is cited like this: “This is a quote” (Streefkerk, 2020, p. 5).

Every in-text citation should also correspond to a full reference at the end of your paper.

A block quote is a long quote formatted as a separate “block” of text. Instead of using quotation marks , you place the quote on a new line, and indent the entire quote to mark it apart from your own words.

The rules for when to apply block quote formatting depend on the citation style:

• APA block quotes are 40 words or longer.
• MLA block quotes are more than 4 lines of prose or 3 lines of poetry.
• Chicago block quotes are longer than 100 words.

If you’re quoting from a text that paraphrases or summarizes other sources and cites them in parentheses , APA and Chicago both recommend retaining the citations as part of the quote. However, MLA recommends omitting citations within a quote:

• APA: Smith states that “the literature on this topic (Jones, 2015; Sill, 2019; Paulson, 2020) shows no clear consensus” (Smith, 2019, p. 4).
• MLA: Smith states that “the literature on this topic shows no clear consensus” (Smith, 2019, p. 4).

Footnote or endnote numbers that appear within quoted text should be omitted in all styles.

If you want to cite an indirect source (one you’ve only seen quoted in another source), either locate the original source or use the phrase “as cited in” in your citation.

In scientific subjects, the information itself is more important than how it was expressed, so quoting should generally be kept to a minimum. In the arts and humanities, however, well-chosen quotes are often essential to a good paper.

In social sciences, it varies. If your research is mainly quantitative , you won’t include many quotes, but if it’s more qualitative , you may need to quote from the data you collected .

As a general guideline, quotes should take up no more than 5–10% of your paper. If in doubt, check with your instructor or supervisor how much quoting is appropriate in your field.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. & Caulfield, J. (2023, May 31). How to Quote | Citing Quotes in APA, MLA & Chicago. Scribbr. Retrieved June 24, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/working-with-sources/how-to-quote/

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Comparing Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens: Key Differences and Significance

This essay is about the comparison between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, highlighting their differences and evolutionary significance. Homo erectus, living from 1.9 million to 110,000 years ago, was one of the first hominins to exhibit human-like traits, such as larger brains and bipedalism. They developed basic tools and spread across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Homo sapiens, emerging around 300,000 years ago, possess even larger brains, advanced cognitive functions, and sophisticated technology and culture. They created complex tools, art, and agriculture, demonstrating higher social complexity and adaptability. The essay underscores how these differences highlight the evolutionary journey leading to modern humans.

How it works

Homo erectus and Homo sapiens are like two key players in the grand story of human evolution, each adding their own special twist to how we became who we are today. Seeing how they’re alike and different gives us a peek into how humans evolved over time.

Homo erectus, which means “upright man,” roamed the Earth from about 1.9 million to 110,000 years ago. These folks were among the first to show off some really human-like traits. Their brains were bigger than their ancestors’, ranging from 600 to 1,100 cubic centimeters.

That bump in brain size hints they were pretty sharp thinkers compared to earlier hominins. Plus, Homo erectus had a body built for walking upright, with longer legs and shorter arms, making it easier to get around on two feet. They also rocked the Stone Age by making and using tools, showing they were on the ball when it came to new technology.

Fast forward to Homo sapiens, or “wise man,” popping up about 300,000 years ago. These folks took brain power to the next level with even bigger noggins, averaging about 1,400 cubic centimeters. More brain space meant they could do fancy stuff like speak complex languages, think about abstract ideas, and solve tricky problems. Looks-wise, they stood out with high foreheads, rounder skulls, and smaller faces and teeth—a setup that suited living in different places and eating different things. On top of all that, Homo sapiens blew everyone away with their culture and tech skills, from crafting detailed tools and art to getting into farming and building complex societies.

One big difference between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens is their tech and culture game. Homo erectus gets props for starting the Acheulean tool scene, rocking hefty tools like hand axes. Meanwhile, Homo sapiens went all out with a huge range of tools, making slick blades, needles, and pottery that showed off serious artistic skills. Their art, like cave paintings and sculptures, showed they were into deep thinking and getting their ideas across in creative ways—not just practical ones like Homo erectus.

Their hangouts were different too. Homo erectus got around, leaving their bones all over Africa, Asia, and Europe, proving they could adapt to lots of places. They were even the first hominins to leave Africa, a big move in human history. Homo sapiens started in Africa too, but they spread out everywhere, showing how flexible and tough they were in lots of different environments.

Their social lives tell another tale. Homo sapiens were big on living together and looking out for each other, doing things like burying the dead and sharing spaces. It was all about teamwork and sticking together. While there’s some hint that Homo erectus might’ve taken care of sick or hurt buddies, Homo sapiens took social skills to a whole new level.

Food was another area where they split ways. Homo erectus chowed down on meat, with signs they hunted and even cooked their meals over fire. That change in diet probably helped their brains grow bigger. Homo sapiens, with all their clever tools and tricks, could hunt, fish, and gather a way wider menu, including plants, fish, and big game. When they figured out farming around 10,000 years ago, it changed everything—making settlements and whole civilizations possible.

In the big picture of evolution, Homo erectus was like a crucial first step in becoming human, with bigger brains, walking upright, and using tools. Without them, Homo sapiens might never have happened. Homo sapiens, though, are like the grand finale of millions of years of change. They’re the top dogs with their super brains, rich culture, and all the cool stuff they invented.

To wrap it up, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens started from the same place but went in different directions with brain power, tools, culture, and how they handled life’s challenges. Their differences show us how humans got to be who we are today—super adaptable and smart, with a knack for making things happen.

Remember, this is just a taste of the story. If you’re curious to learn more, reaching out to folks at EduBirdie could be a great move. They’re pros at helping you dig deeper and make sure your work hits all the marks for school.

Cite this page

Comparing Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens: Key Differences and Significance. (2024, Jun 28). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/comparing-homo-erectus-and-homo-sapiens-key-differences-and-significance/

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). Comparing Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens: Key Differences and Significance . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/comparing-homo-erectus-and-homo-sapiens-key-differences-and-significance/ [Accessed: 29-Jun-2024]

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Generative AI and the Problem of (Dis)Trust

A year and a half into the generative “AI” moment, the ability to trust students may be the biggest casualty, Jacob Riyeff writes.

By  Jacob Riyeff

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One day this May during the end-of-term ritual that is the grading of papers, I came upon a description of a character that lacked any basis whatsoever in the novel we had been reading. Two years ago, I would have paused and thought this was too bad—that a student hadn’t really read the novel carefully or simply relied on a faulty memory of the scene involved instead of going back to confirm their take’s veracity. Not a big deal.

But now, a year and a half after ChatGPT’s release to the general public brought large language model (LLM)–based chat bots into everyday use, it’s different. (In an attempt to resist the common attribution of agency and/or anthropomorphic qualities to these programs, I’ll refer to them as “machine learning applications” and “LLM-based chat bots” rather than “artificial intelligence” or “AI.”) Instead of seeing this inaccuracy as something I could flag for the student to return to or to talk with me about, I had the sinking feeling that maybe what I’d been reading for a page and a half already was synthetic text extruded from a chat bot rather than the textual representation of the ideas of a young woman whom I knew and had shared a university seminar room with twice a week.

Instructors can have their reasons for asking students to engage with chat bots for their academic work, but for this assignment the use of chat bots did not align with my learning outcomes. We had also talked at length in class about the problematic nature of LLM-based chat bots’ function in relation to the kind of work we were doing in the class (and in general), and I had gone through a class exercise showing the kinds of erroneous responses ChatGPT will give to very basic questions about a literary work.

I had also altered a number of my assessments so that the temptation to use chat bots would be significantly lessened. Yet I couldn’t help suspecting that this particular erroneous sentence was likely a chat bot’s text, not attributed as such but claimed as the student’s own ideas and words. After reading the rest of the essay and not encountering other red flags, I decided to reconsider my suspicion. In the immortal words of Kurt Vonnegut, and as so often in the life of a university professor at this moment: so it goes.

As not only an instructor in the humanities but also my university’s academic integrity director, my year and a half since the unveiling of the slew of “generative AI” programs to the general public has been saturated with discourse about these applications and their intersections with education and writing. I’ve been reading much more about algorithmic technologies than I ever thought likely and hearing and talking about them in faculty colloquiums, administrative meetings and student-led initiatives, as well as in regular conversations with faculty members after they realize students have been trying to pass off LLM-based chat bot text as their own. Not to mention in the hallways and at the proverbial water coolers.

In all these forums, I heard and read different tropes about these machine learning applications. There was the adage about how “everyone freaked out when calculators came out, too.” There was the performance in which the first speaker at a meeting read an overly reflective and abstract opening statement about “AI” and then—beat—announced that what they had just read was generated by ChatGPT.

The one that has rankled me the most, though, and that I have seen the most, is the false dichotomy suggesting that instructors are either embracing the new frontiers these LLM-based chat bot technologies will open up or they are afraid of them. As if there weren’t any (or many) other options.

As you might be able to tell already, I’m not a fan of these technologies (a fair approximation of my overall view of the whole issue can be found in Ulises A. Mejias’s and Nick Couldry’s summary of their recent book here , while my own shot at a take can be found here ). And this is where I’m supposed to acknowledge (another trope) that “these machine learning applications can have all kinds of benefits, even though there can be real harms.” But in the realm of cultural analysis, critique and interpretation, I have yet to have anyone show me any way that the chat bots are genuinely helpful. And that’s not even touching on all the ecological, bias and copyright issues. I’ve seen how they can be helpful in some computing contexts, and they may end up being good for business analytics, etc., but I have no reason to defer to OpenAI, Microsoft or Alphabet on the future of humanities education.

Regardless, what I want to underline is that the false dichotomy of “embrace” and “fear” that I continue to hear echoed again and again is just that: false. And this false dichotomy occludes and prevents more nuanced responses and acknowledgment of possible responses to our machine learning–saturated moment. I do not embrace the miraculous technofuture, nor am I afraid of this technology. But what sinks my heart are the ways in which the chat bots have unfortunately impacted my ability to trust my students.

Let me state here very clearly that if a student uses a chat bot and cites that use, this is not at all what I’m discussing here. Some instructors ask their students to use LLM-based chat bots or allow them to as long as they cite them. That’s fine. I’m not in favor of that approach, but I understand that other instructors have other learning outcomes and goals for their students, and I am not wanting to dispute those outcomes, goals or practices here. Even if my own students—whom I ask not to use chat bots—were to use them and cite that use, while I wouldn’t accept that as a well-done assignment, it wouldn’t affect my trust.

I assume students don’t think about their unattributed use of chat bots as affecting a personal relationship. But those of us who actually still believe in the edifying power of higher education can’t see the relationship between instructors and students as one of instrumental exchange—products (assignments filled out) for payments (grades). Or as one of mechanical input and output. In the classroom, in office hours, and in conferences, there is (can be) a genuine mutual sharing between persons if we strive for it, if we foster dialogue and sharing of perspectives in our common scrutinizing of reality and pursuit of truth. And the making and assessing of assignments is (can be) an extension of that relationship’s mutual sharing. But to engage in that scrutiny and that pursuit in common, the relationship between instructor and student requires integrity—that is, both parties need to be honest in their communications with one another.

In what we’ve traditionally understood as cheating, plagiarism and fraud, the foundational problem isn’t that one isn’t putting the work in, but that one isn’t representing themselves honestly to others. Being social beings, we have to be able to rely on one another. In an academic setting, part of that relying on one another is the ability to trust that what a student tells me in their academic work accurately reflects how it was made. If a student pays someone else to write an essay and submits that essay with their own name on top, the submission is a lie—it is duplicitous and does not accurately reflect how the essay was made due to the conventions of what putting one’s name at the top of a piece of paper or a file means. One’s name at the top is a claim that “I have made this thing.” When words or ideas in that thing are not ours, we cite where we found those words and ideas. This convention of citation assures our readers or viewers how it is that we can have words or ideas that are not our own in our work and yet the work still reflects the reality of how it was made. The matching of representation with reality makes for integrity and builds trust.

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The essay I read in May might have been representing the reality of how it was made. And maybe it wasn’t. But the hype and the constant discussion surrounding LLM-based chat bots and, frankly, the fact that I have seen so many cases of students trying to pass synthetic text off as their own without appropriate attribution have for the moment conditioned me to mistrust my students somewhat. And I hate that.

I went to college because I found an Old English poem in a library book once in my early 20s (I had to go to college to find out how this Old English stuff worked). And I went to graduate school because I had found the riches of a liberal education far more valuable and exciting than other paths I could see as possibilities for my life. I became a (non-tenure-track) professor because I wanted to share all the things I’d learned with folks coming up in the world and to learn from them as well. I’ve stayed because I love the common scrutinizing of reality that I get to do with my students and my colleagues every day. We’re striving for knowledge together and, dare I say, wisdom. And we need to be able to trust one another to continue that dialogue. I’m looking forward to when this moment has died down and we can focus on other more important matters again. Like celebrating the arts. Like questioning systems of power and thought. Like compelling arguments. Like how we can imagine better futures for ourselves and one another.

In the meantime, I’ll likely continue having versions of this conversation I had with a student earlier this term:

Student: Why can’t I just use a chat bot to write this essay?

Me: Because I don’t care about what OpenAI’s products can do. I care about what you’re thinking.

Jacob Riyeff is a teaching associate professor and the academic integrity director at Marquette University.

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These classic ’60s books shout from the shelves to be read again

Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Harper Lee and others asked provocative, brave questions about many of the same urgent issues we face today.

The National Book Awards will celebrate its 75th anniversary at this year’s ceremony, on Nov. 20. To mark the occasion, The Washington Post has collaborated with the administrator and presenter of the awards, the National Book Foundation, to commission a series of essays by National Book Award-honored authors who will consider (and reconsider), decade by decade, the books that were recognized and those that were overlooked; the preoccupations of authors, readers and the publishing industry through time; the power and subjectivity of judges and of awards; and the lasting importance of books to our culture, from the 1950s to the present day. In this essay, Prudence Peiffer — longlisted for the nonfiction award in 2023 for “ The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever ” — looks back at the 1960s.

“Art hurts. Art urges voyages–/ and it is easier to stay at home,/ the nice beer ready.”

This is poet Gwendolyn Brooks at her best, stinging sentiment followed by a swig of damning, ordinary detail from the fridge. We’ve worked hard for a drink that shuts out the world. The lines are taken from her collection “In the Mecca,” a National Book Award finalist in 1969. An adjacent thought from another poet, Elizabeth Bishop, in “Questions of Travel” (1966 finalist): “Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?”

Writing is both the staying at home and the difficult voyage, which makes it particularly useful for time travel. And from mushrooms to the moon, no decade in the United States is more known for its mind-expanding trips than the 1960s. Despite that era’s iconic male voices (you may have read a few), its women writers have moved me most in influencing my work: Bishop, Brooks, Hannah Arendt, Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Harper Lee, Flannery O’Connor, Susan Sontag — and names that, sadly, don’t ring as loudly today, like Alice Kimball Smith.

With intimate assurance and often radical insight, these authors took up a looming anxiety of the postwar and Cold War era: What does community mean? Another way of asking this is: Where does home end and “elsewhere” begin, and how does that define one’s responsibilities? These were provocative, even brave, questions to pose as a woman in 1960s America; it makes these books that much more relevant and alive to us lucky enough to read them today.

In her environmental cri de coeur “Silent Spring” (1963 finalist), Carson illustrated the interconnectivity of life via unforgettable images, like an owl in convulsions after eating a shrew that in turn ate earthworms that in turn ate decomposed leaves that had fallen from a tree sprayed with chemicals for Dutch elm disease.“Most of us walk unseeing through the world, unaware alike of its beauties, its wonders, and the strange and sometimes terrible intensity of the lives that are being lived about us,” Carson wrote. She was describing how, venturing out into the garden at night with a flashlight, we’d be amazed and horrified at the vicious balance of nature. But that sentence could just as easily have come from Jacobs’s “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” (1962 finalist), in which Jacobs argued that we need to understand and celebrate urban complexity, and make sure that complexity is not demolished in the name of profits for the few. A city needs to be for everybody, but also: Everybody makes a city great.

I’m struck by how these classics from Carson and Jacobs can be read in succession as pendant volumes of community activism. In that era of fervent capitalist nation-building, they were daring warnings of democracy’s fragility, the importance of living with and trusting strangers. Carson’s most radical move was calling out a different kind of life cycle, one in which scientists’ research was funded by the very industry their findings were supposed to regulate.

It wasn’t just nonfiction writers who captured the “strange and sometimes terrible intensity” of the lives around us. That’s also reflected with cold brilliance in O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge” (1966 finalist), her blunt portrait of the rural South. (Bishop almost made a pilgrimage to see O’Connor in Milledgeville, Ga., where the writer famously lived on a farm with her peacocks, but timing thwarted the visit; instead, Bishop sent her a cross in a bottle.) Like so many of the writers in this remarkable decade, O’Connor showed people in a rapidly changing landscape where a community is under threat. She knew a good title and she always stuck the landing, often with a violent death that shattered a character’s self-righteousness. I’ve never flinched so much while reading. She spared no one, including herself, if unintentionally: We can feel O’Connor working through her questions about the fallibility of her White, Catholic views, which maintained their own ingrained bigotry. What does it mean to be a good Christian when everyone’s life feels preordained? Published just a year after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the ban on segregation, “Everything That Rises” is a reminder of racism’s rooted legacy in daily thinking — our most intimate language — especially in characters who are trying to perform a kind of morality. Scenes like the one on the bus in the title story, or in the doctor’s waiting room in “Revelation,” are primers for the barbarous truth that can hide in idle conversation.

O’Connor famously called Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1961 finalist) a children’s book. (It’s true that it has maintained its central place in the national consciousness through its pervasiveness on high school reading lists, and some of its most powerful scenes take place in the schoolyard.) Though its tone could not be more different than “Everything That Rises,” it’s also a work of fiction teeming with neighborhood life in the still-segregated South and concerned with our moral responsibilities to the community around us. The judgment in Lee’s book is tied more to the law and its democratic processes than to the Bible, but Lee gives Atticus Finch a radically empathetic vision of religious intensity.

Defining and modeling empathy around community had different stakes for different writers. “In the Mecca” was a fulcrum for Brooks: It was her final book with a major trade publisher before she chose to work only with smaller, Black-run presses — a powerful statement coming from a Pulitzer Prize winner who had just been appointed poet laureate of Illinois. Like Jacobs’s book, “In the Mecca” is about the death of American cities (here, Chicago) through neglect, racism and poor planning, but also about the life in them, through their people and art.

Arendt’s “Men in Dark Times” (1969 finalist) ties community to responsibility, or our knowing turn away from it: “More and more people in the countries of the Western world, which since the decline of the ancient world has regarded freedom from politics as one of the basic freedoms, make use of this freedom and have retreated from the world and their obligations within it,” she wrote. In arguing for the necessity of a community of thinkers in the worst of times, Arendt read across media and history, a dexterity of thinking shared by Sontag, who embraced the Doors and Dostoevsky. Both Arendt and Sontag describe what is happening in plain sight and language, the “luminousness of the thing in itself,” as Sontag describes it, “of things being what they are.” Sontag identified the bliss in aesthetics; she claimed to see a film a day during this decade. Her essay collection “Against Interpretation” (1967 finalist) is brimming with evenings out experiencing things, followed by evenings in describing them (including a merry takedown of Ernest Hemingway). Her sentences are alive with unresolved, still-in-process thinking; the collection ends just before she turned to writing against the Vietnam War.

Arendt’s thought was rooted in World War II and the culture it arrested, the future conflicts it had already failed to stem. In her essay on the German writer Walter Benjamin, exiled from his home country by war, Arendt seems to implicitly pick up Jacobs’s treatise on the importance of a city’s sidewalk life, extending the strangers we meet there to the homeless and stateless who might still find some place to gather. When Arendt writes that technology has made surprising communities, so that every country is “the almost immediate neighbor of every other country, and every man feels the shock of events which take place at the other side of the globe,” social media is the premonition. She, of course, is talking about atomic weapons.

One of the more fascinating and now less-known books of this era is Alice Kimball Smith’s “A Peril and a Hope” (1966 finalist), which examines, sometimes in hour-by-hour detail, how scientists involved in the Manhattan Project tried to manage the impact of the nuclear bomb during its development and in the years just following its use in World War II. (Smith later co-edited an anthology of Robert Oppenheimer’s letters.) Her book is ultimately about the failure of two distinct communities — science and politics — to find a common language through which to understand each other. Though scientists were not in consensus, many of them wanted the United States to be transparent with other countries about its nuclear capabilities — the original hope was that the mere demonstration of an atomic bomb, like the test in the Nevada desert, would persuade our enemies to surrender. Where does home end and the “other” begin?

I admire the small but profound choices of emphasis these writers made. In “Silent Spring,” Carson gave “housewives” the same weight as scientists, citing numerous letters they wrote to newspapers, town councils and ornithologists noting the effects of insecticides and weed killers on wildlife in their neighborhoods. Women may have barely been represented among the scientists employed in the atomic project, but that didn’t stop Smith from writing that community’s definitive story. (Despite having earned a doctorate, Smith is still mostly identified as the wife of one of the Manhattan Project scientists, underscoring why she was better positioned than most to understand the perils of secrecy. Her book is out of print and difficult to access, even in libraries.)

The 1960s cemented a certain intellectual curiosity and urgency around the environment, race and war, subjects that remain the sources of the deepest schisms in our communities. It’s hard not to feel these books shouting from the shelves to be read again for what they can tell us about their time and our own, as the present continuously, swiftly becomes history. Think of microplastics in our water and forever chemicals in our organic salads; the “epidemic” of loneliness diagnosed by the surgeon general, whose recommended treatment directly maps to Jacobs’s prescriptions for a city block; the ongoing racism across the country that turns back small gains made since 2020; Russia’s investment in atomic satellites and deployment of “tactical” nuclear weapons; the uprooting, starvation and death of tens of thousands of children in Gaza and elsewhere.

These writers have shown me that it’s better to step into the mire, to be not at peace with the world but constantly making something of it. That something can be small and local. It can be beautiful and pleasurable in spite of — even because of — what is at stake. Or as Brooks put it, “Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the/ whirlwind.”

Prudence Peiffer is the author of “The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever.”