Academic Honesty means being honest and ethical about the way that you do academic work. This includes citing and acknowledging when you borrow from the work of others. As Holy Cross students, you are required to follow the College's Academic Honesty policy.
Excerpt from the College Academic Integrity Policy:
It is the responsibility of students, independent of the faculty’s responsibility, to understand the proper methods of using and quoting from source materials (refer to http://libguides.holycross.edu/citationhelp or standard handbooks such as The Little Brown Handbook and The Hodges Harbrace Handbook), and to take credit only for work they have completed through their own individual efforts within the guidelines established by the faculty.
For more information and guidelines on Academic Honesty, visit the Academic Honesty & Academic Integrity Research Guide.
Research and scholarship is one big conversation - you are building your research with the support of another researcher who built their research with the support of another researcher who built their research with the support of another researcher... And so on. By citing sources, you are putting your work into that legacy and conversation. And who knows, maybe in the future someone will cite your work in their research.
Other reasons to cite sources:
In addition to citing exact quotations from your sources, you need to cite any ideas or words that you did not think up yourself. You should always cite:
From the Claremont Colleges Library's tutorial on Exploring Academic Integrity: http://libraries.claremont.edu/achontutorial/pages/achon_mod02pg10.html
If you use only one source, you may end up using too many of that author’s ideas and words. Research is a conversation and you should include multiple perspectives and sources to help you come to your point. Using multiple sources can help you craft a better argument and can make sure you're not leaning too heavily on one author's work.
Leave yourself enough time to do your research and writing. If you are rushing to finish your paper, you’ll be more likely to improperly cite things or to accidentally plagiarize. Give yourself time to look over your work and check your citations.
The Modern Languages Association (MLA) citation style is often used in the language arts, literature studies, and other humanities fields. The 9th edition of the MLA Handbook was published in 2021 and is the most current version. In MLA style, sources are cited in-text using parenthetical references and in a complete Works Cited list at the end of a paper. See the box on this page labeled MLA Style Guides for links to the MLA Handbook and associated websites to help you with your citations.
MLA provides a standard format for the core elements to include in a Works Cited list, which are shown in the image here.
Here is an example of a journal article cited in MLA format in a works cited page.
Verini, Alexandra. "Medieval Models of Female Friendship in Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies and Margery Kempe’s The Book of Margery Kempe.” Feminist Studies, vol. 42, no. 2, 2016, pp. 365-391. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.15767/feministstudies.42.2.0365.
1. Author. | Verini, Alexandra. | Author's name is listed Last name, First name. |
2. Title of Source. | "Medieval Models of Female Friendship in Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies and Margery Kempe’s The Book of Margery Kempe.” |
The article title is capitalized "headline style," meaning each word is capitalized. In this case, the title also contains the title of books. Those are formatted in italics. |
3. Title of Container, | Feminist Studies, | The journal title is listed in italics. |
4. Contributor, | Not applicable, so we leave this blank. The contributor may refer to an editor or translator, which this article does not have. | |
5. Version, | Not applicable, so we leave this blank. This is used if there are multiple editions of a source. | |
6. Number, | vol. 42, no. 2, | The volume and issue of the journal are listed with the abbreviations vol. and no. and separated by commas. |
7. Publisher, | Not applicable, so we leave this blank. Citations for journals do not need to include a publisher because there typically is no publisher, or the publisher is the same as the journal title. | |
8. Publication Date, | 2016, | Include as much of the date as you are given. Some journals may give a month and year or a season and year. Enter the date in the following order: Month Day, Year. |
9. Location. | pp. 365-391. |
Give information to help your reader find your source within the container. In this case, we provide the page numbers with the abbreviation pp. before the page range. Note that this does not refer to a geographic location - you would only use the geographic location for a source or event that is located in one physical location, like a painting in a museum or an orchestra performance you attended. |
Because this article was found in a database, we also cite the database as a "Second Container." To conserve space, only the core elements that are included in the citation are listed below. | ||
3. Title of Container, | JSTOR, | This is the database where the article was found. |
9. Location. | A DOI, URL, or permanent link is used to give the location of a source that is hosted online. |
In MLA, works are cited throughout the text using parenthetical references with the author's last name and the associated page number. The in-text citation should direct the reader to the full citation in your works cited list, so the first word in the in-text citation should match the first word in the works cited entry. This will usually be the first author's last name, but if you are ever citing a work by a title instead of an author you would use that title in your in-text citation. If you are quoting or paraphrasing a specific part of the source, you should also include a page number in your in-text citation.
Here are some example in-text citations for the journal article cited in the last example.
Footnotes are used to provide citations without breaking up the text with parenthetical references. In a footnote, the citation is listed at the bottom of the page with a number that corresponds to the part of the text where it is cited. The first time you include a source in a footnote, you should provide a full citation like you would in a Works Cited page. The following times you cite that source, include a shortened footnote with the author's last name and the page number (if applicable - for quotes and paraphrasing).
An annotated bibliography is like an expanded Works Cited list. In an annotated bibliography, you cite your sources and then add an annotation that describes and evaluates the cited source. Creating an annotated bibliography is an opportunity for you to think critically about your sources and how you will use them in your research. It can also help you keep track of the key arguments and content of each source and identify the strengths and weaknesses of sources.