The big idea
You cite your sources to prove to your reader where you got your information. In some instances, the reader may be so interested in what you wrote that he or she wants to read more about the topic. Citations tell where to find the same sources you used.
Before you begin
Be sure that you keep track of all necessary information AS YOU ARE DOING YOUR RESEARCH. Jot down the title of the book or magazine, author, publisher, date, and so on. Writing this stuff down as you go is one heck of a lot easier than going back to the library later on to hunt it all up.
How to do it
End notes are one way to show where you got your information for a research paper. End notes are not the same as a bibliography. Not, not, not.
What to cite:
- Everything that you quote
- Any fact that is not common knowledge
- Any conclusions reached by other people, a phrase which here means "intelligent things said or written by somebody--not you--that are based on mountains and mountains of study done on a particular topic"
Where to cite
At the end of each sentence. Here's what it looks like. Look for the little numbers hanging up in the air above the line. Those numbers tell you where to look on the end notes page to learn where each fact came from. I've made them red here so they stand out, but don't do that in your own papers. (When you're doing it, use "superscript" in your word processing program to get the numbers to float in the air.)
Where to document: at the end of the paper. End notes get their own page. At the end. That's why they're called end notes. Here's what it looks like:
- Smith, Spudley, A Foot, a Skunk, a Legend: The Bob Flob Story (New York: Odoreaters Press, 1987), p. 43.
- O'Williams, William W., "Skunk Kicking," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1974, Macropaedia.
- Kirk, James T., Everything You Never Wanted to Know About the Olympics (Hollister, CA: Earthquake Books, 1983), p. 100.
- Steven Spielberg, dir., Flob, with Hilary Duff and Arnold Schwartzeneggar.
- "Other People's Conclusions: The Web Site," http://www.pizzaface.com/conclusions/conclu.html.
Please note that there is a whole bunch of rules about what to put on the end notes page if, for example, you've already mentioned a book but you're using a fact from a different page. Ignore all those rules for right now. There's plenty of time for life to get complicated later.
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Copyright 1996-2004 by Michael Klingensmith