Citing Sources

Once you have selected the topic and theme, posed a question, and acquired the appropriate materials, you can begin constructing the paper.  As noted several times in this online guide, the paper must follow the author/date system of the Chicago Manual of Style.  Papers that do not use the appropriate style are unacceptable.  Be aware that there are two different styles in the Chicago Manual.  One is for the humanities, which uses the documentary note system.  The other is for the social sciences, which uses the author/data system.  Students in my class must use the author/date system, which is the system for the social sciences.   An example of the standard author/date citation follows (examples appear in Times New Roman font):

According to Marx (1867), crucial to the development of capitalism is the destruction of the social rules of the feudal order.  “The immediate producer, the laborer, could only dispose of his own person after he had ceased to be attached to the soil and ceased to be the slave, serf, or bondsman of another” (973). 

Note that I locate the date of the publication after the author’s name and that there is no comma separating them.  Note the space between the last character of the author’s name and the left parenthesis.  Note also the space between the second quotation mark and the left parenthesis.  Many students make the error of butting the left parenthesis up against the last character to its left.  Also, note that the page number in parentheses exists between the last quotation mark and the period ending the sentence.  There is an exception to this.  Suppose I use a longer quote than the one used above.  For quotes longer than three lines, I want to set those off:

According to Marx (1867), crucial to the development of capitalism was the destruction of the social rules of the feudal order.  “The immediate producer, the laborer, could only dispose of his own person after he had ceased to be attached to the soil and ceased to be the slave, serf, or bondsman of another” (973).  Marx elaborates his argument:

To become a free seller of labor-power, who carries his commodity wherever he finds a market, he must further have escaped from the regime of the guilds, their rules for apprentices and journeymen, and the impediments of their labor regulations. Hence, the historical movement which changes the producers into wage-workers, appears, on the one hand, as their emancipation from serfdom and from the fetters of the guilds, and this side alone exists for our bourgeois historians. But, on the other hand, these new freedmen became sellers of themselves only after they had been robbed of all their own means of production, and of all the guarantees of existence afforded by the old feudal arrangements. And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire. (1867, 973)

Note that, in this case, the parenthetical citation is on the other side of the period.  We do this because it might seem, absent the quotation marks, that the date and page number are part of the quotation. 

Never include a parenthetical citation inside the quotation marks.  This example shows an improper citation:

“The immediate producer, the laborer, could only dispose of his own person after he had ceased to be attached to the soil and ceased to be the slave, serf, or bondsman of another (Marx 1867, 973).” 

The paper must cite all sources with the author’s name and the date of the publication and, if a direct quote or close paraphrase is used, accompanied by a page number.  However, avoid quoting.   Wherever you can, put the information in your own words.  Quotes are useful for illustrating something significant, not for hunting verbiage. But if you quote, make sure the quote is grammatical relative to the textual context.  For example, if you use a quote that begins with a capital letter in an already existing sentence, change the capital letter to a small letter surrounded by brackets: 

Marx (1867) argues that “[t]he immediate producer, the laborer, could only dispose of his own person after he had ceased to be attached to the soil and ceased to be the slave, serf, or bondsman of another” (973). 

These examples are not exhaustive. That is what the Chicago Manual of Style is for.  Follow the style manual in producing in-text citations, quotations, etc.  All sources cited in the paper must appear in the works cited page with all the relevant information (name, date, article title, journal title, volume, number, page numbers or, if a book, book title, publisher).  If you do not cite a source, this means you did not use it, and therefore it must not appear on the works cited page.  The paper must cite in the text any source listed on the works cited page.  Books and journals are either italicized or underlined.  Articles are in quotation marks.

Contents
Writing in My Class (Introduction)
Resources
Excuses, Plagiarism, and Learned Helplessness
Understanding the Call
Topics, Themes and the Research Questions
Building the Foundation
Citing Sources
Manuscript Format
Deadlines and File Formats
Grading Method
Works Cited