To find material from a citation, you must first determine the
format of the material. You need to know if you're looking for a book, an article from a periodical (magazine, journal, or newspaper), or some other source, like a DVD or website.
Read each of the following citations; can you tell which refer to books and which refer to periodical articles? If so, use the tabs above for Finding Books and A/V Materials and Finding Articles from Periodicals. If not, use the information below to understand how to read a citation.
Bishop, K. and Kimball, M. A. (2006). Engaging students in storytelling.Teacher Librarian, 33(4), 28-31.
Bittman, M. (2009). Food matters: A guide to conscious eating with more than 75 recipes. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Renner, Stanley. "Secular Meaning in 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find.'" College Literature 9.2 (1982): 123-32. Print.
Updike, John. "A & P." The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, and Writing. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: St. Martin's, 1996. 487-491. Print.
Zaplan, T. (2004). Human rights for women are receiving greater attention. In L. Egendorf (Ed.), Human Rights. Retrieved from http://www.gale.cengage.com/OpposingViewpoints
For BOOKS, regardless of citation style, basic citation information consists of:
DEAD GIVEAWAYS for book citations: Editor name(s), edition numbers or names, city and publisher names
Using the current guidelines (2016), an MLA-style citation for a book looks like this:
Pollan, Micahel.The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin, 2006.
The author's name is Michael Pollan. The title of the book is The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. The book was published by Penguin (publisher location is no longer necessary for an MLA-style citation, but you'll see locations for older citations). Its copyright is 2006.
A current APA-style citation (2009) for the same book looks like this:
Pollan, M. (2006). The omnivore's dilemma: A natural history of four meals. New York: Penguin.
DON'T BE FOOLED BY CITATIONS...
...FOR PARTICULAR SECTIONS OF BOOKS, where the section author and title appear before the book author(s) or editor(s):
Cage, J. (2001). Tribes of times. In R. Katz and B. Grandate (Eds.), Writings for the millenium (3rd ed., Vol. 1, p. 45). Chicago: St. Paul Press.
...FOR articles THAT HAVE BEEN REPRINTED IN books:
Renner, Stanley. “Secular Meaning in ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’” College Literature 9.2 (1982): 123-32. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 132. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 232-237. Print.
...FOR ELECTRONIC BOOKS, where no publisher information is provided:
Paludi, M. A. (2004). Praeger guide to the psychology of gender. Retrieved from http://ebooks.greenwood.com
Among the examples at the top of the page, the citations for Bittman, Updike, and Zaplan are all book citations.
For more examples of book citations, see the library's Citation Guide.
To search for a book, go to the Finding Books and A/V Materials tab.
For ARTICLES from periodicals, regardless of citation style, basic citation information consists of:
DEAD GIVEAWAYS for periodical citations: issue numbers, dates more specific than the year, title words like Journal, Magazine, Post, Times, etc.
Using older guidelines (2009), this is an MLA-style citation for a journal article:
Jones, Howard Mumford. “The Attractions of Stupidity.” St. Croix Review 30.2 (1997): 6-10.
Using the latest guidelines (2016), this is an MLA-style citation for the same journal article:
Jones, Howard Mumford. “The Attractions of Stupidity.” St. Croix Review, vol. 30, no. 2, 1997, pp. 6-10.
The author of the article is Howard Mumford Jones. The title of the article is "The Attractions of Stupidity," and the title of the journal is St. Croix Review. The volume number is 30, and the issue number is 2. Published in 1997, the article appears on pages 6 through 10.
A current APA-style citation (2009) for the same articles looks like this:
Jones, H. M. (1997). The attractions of stupidity. St. Croix Review, 30(2), 6-10.
DON'T BE FOOLED BY CITATIONS....
...FOR PERIODICAL ARTICLES WHERE NO ISSUE NUMBER APPEARS:
Watson, J. D., & Crick, F. H. (1953). A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature, 171, 6-10.
...FOR NEWSPAPER ARTICLES WITH NEITHER ISSUE NOR VOLUME NUMBERS:
Munsey, C., & Shuey, P. J. (1997, May 8). Bomb threats to become felony. The Capital, pp. A1, A6.
...FOR ARTICLES THAT HAVE BEEN REPRINTED IN BOOKS:
Renner, Stanley. “Secular Meaning in ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’” College Literature 9.2 (1982): 123-32. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 132. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 232-237.
Among the examples at the top of the page, the citations for Bishop and Renner are article citations.
For more examples of article citations, see the library's Citation Guide.
To locate an article from its citation, go to the Finding Articles from Periodicals tab.
Citations for other sources (e.g., DVD's, websites, television and radio sources, etc.) will make the format explicit:
“Balance vs. Bias in Journalism.” Talk of the Nation. National Public Radio. WYPR, Baltimore. 17 Apr. 2006. Radio.
Gladstone, B. (Host and managing editor). (2004, May 24). Gender detector. In J. Keefe (Producer), On the media [Radio program]. New York, NY: WNYC.
Indigo Girls, perf. “Tangled Up in Blue.” By Bob Dylan. 1200 Curfews. Rec. 1994. Sony, 1995. MP3 file.
Miller, K. P., & Gilchrist, C. L. (Producers), & Miller, K. P. (Director). (2008). Generation Rx [DVD]. Canada: Common Radius Films.
"Cher." Biography.com. A&E Television, 2008. Web. 7 Feb. 2009.
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