Forms of Citation Acceptable in

Prof. Irwin's Online U.S. History Classes

 

For essays in my class (check with your other instructors for their papers), you may use a standard form of citation (Turabian, Chicago, etc.) to cite the sources you use.

 

Or you may use a shorthand form of citation, as in the following example:

 

Blah blah blah.  (45)

 

This citation tells me and your classmates that you found pertinent information on page 45 of Roark, American Promise, our only approved source for writing essays in this class. Please do not repeat the authors' names, the book title, place of publication, etc. We already know those things (plus they artificially inflate your word count). Just tell us the page numbers, please.

 

You are permitted to cite information you find in the online chapter outlines (although you must convert them into proper sentences). To cite the chapter outlines, cite the whole url. For example:

 

Blah blah blah. (http://www.irwinator.com/120/ch01-6e.htm)

 

MODELS YOU MAY ADAPT FOR YOUR ESSAYS:

 

Sometimes your paragraph will only refer to one source. Here is an example of a paragraph with only one source. This particular citation condenses several pages into one cite:

 

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.  (663, 665.)

 

 

Sometimes you will refer to more than one source in the same paragraph. Here is an example of a paragraph drawn from two different sources. The following citations tell the reader that you paraphrased general information from the textbook, followed up by a direct quote (properly introduced) from the textbook. The citation goes here because you want your reader to know that you are about to switch sources. For the next two sentences, the reader will understand that you borrowed information from the chapter outline. The last sentence is the analysis or personal opinion of the author, and therefore it needs no source information: 

 

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. As historian Michael Roark observes, "Blah blah blah." (665.) Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. (http://www.irwinator.com/120/ch01-6e.htm.) Clearly he just wasn't dead enough.

 

Please note that the above example tells the reader the source of the direct quote. This is important--when you introduce a direct quote, you must tell your reader who is "speaking."

 

Please note that you must cite your source(s) when making direct quotes (i.e., lifting text out of a book verbatim and enclosing it in quotation marks) AND when you quoting indirectly (i.e., summarizing or rephrasing someone else's work). Not to identify your sources is plagiarism, the cardinal sin of all writing.

 

The only time you don't have to cite some one else is when the information is common knowledge; when you are describing events you witnessed or participated in personally; or when you are expressing your own analysis or opinion.