Speech Communication: Citing Sources

Citation styles provide rules for formatting your citations or references. Although there are many different citation styles, those most commonly used by students at COD are American Psychological Association (APA) and Modern Language Association (MLA). The style you should use is usually determined by the discipline or course in which you are working. Ask your instructor what style is required or recommended.

Although every citation style is different, there are some standard elements to record:

• Title (of book or article and journal)
• Author
• Publication Date
• Publisher or source
• Start and end pages (for articles and book chapters)

For electronic sources such as Web pages, you should record this additional information:

• The date you accessed the site
• The digital object identifier (DOI) if there is one
• The URL (Web address) if there is no DOI

Citation Resources

As a rule of thumb, these are the three basic elements, but this will vary with the type of source:

• WHO: Identify the element of the source (author or title) which provides the greatest authority and/or secondary credibility. Does the author have credentials?
• WHAT: What type of publication is it—newspaper, government report, magazine, journal? (In other words, would everybody know that the Kansas City Star is a newspaper? If not, tell them!)
• WHEN: When was the book, magazine, newspaper or journal published (date)? When was the person interviewed? When was the website last updated and/or when did you access the website?

Articles

If you are quoting from a magazine, newspaper or journal article, mention the author (if relevant) as well as the (full) date and title of the source. This applies to both print sources and those found in the library databases.

• “According to Len Zehm, a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, in an article from May 31, 2006…”
• “Newsweek magazine of December 4, 2005 lists bankruptcy as the…”
• “In the latest Gallup Poll, cited in last week’s issue of Time magazine…”

You do not need to give the title of the article, although you may if it helps in any way. For example, if you are quoting one or more articles from the same newspaper, this would help differentiate the sources. You do not need to give the page number nor the name of electronic database that cataloged the periodical/publication.

Books

If you are citing information from a book, provide the title of the book, year of publication and a brief mention of the author's credentials. You don’t have to mention the page, publisher, or city of publication:

• "In his 2005 book, Eating to Be Smart, Charles Larson, a registered dietitian, notes that consuming yogurt…”

Websites

If you are citing a website, you need to establish the credibility of the website and its author(s). Mention:

• the title of the website
• the author of the content you're quoting
  • This could be a named individual or an organization.
  • You will need to establish the credibility of the author(s). You can look at the "About" page on the website, if one is available, but you should also confirm that information using an outside source. Wikipedia can be a good place to find information on an author or organization. Visit the Evaluating Sources page for more information.
• the last date it was updated, if known, and the date you accessed the site.

Examples:

• “One of the most active developers of neurotechnology, Cyberkinetics.com, claims on their website, last updated on March 24, 2006, that…”
• “From the website maintained by the Wisconsin Council of Dairy Farmers entitled “Dairy Products and Your Diet”, as of January 10, 2007, yogurt…” (or “of an unknown date which I accessed on September 18th of this year”), yogurt proves to be…”

In an oral citation of a website, you do not need to give the URL.

Caution: If a website quotes a book, magazine or newspaper, remember that your source is the website, not the book/magazine/newspaper from which the quote originates.

• “From the website Beconvinced.com, a commercial website promoting the religion of Islam, the book Principles of Oceanography is quoted as stating that…”

Interviews

If you are quoting the source of an interview, give the person's name and statement of their credentials, date of interview, as well as the fact that the information was obtained from a personal interview:

• “In a personal interview on January 15 that I conducted with Nancy Manes, head of cardiac care at Central DuPage Hospital, the most important…”

Caution: Interviews are not the same as conversations or undocumented recollections of class lectures; interview sources must be credentialed “experts” in their fields.