Basic patterns - Order of elements - Parenthetical citations–reference list style: the basic form - Part II. Source Citation

A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, 7th edition - Kate L. Turabian 2007

Basic patterns - Order of elements
Parenthetical citations–reference list style: the basic form
Part II. Source Citation

A citation style used widely in most social sciences and in the natural and physical sciences is the parenthetical citations—reference list style, or reference list style for short. It is also known as author-date style, because the author's name and the date of publication are the critical elements for identifying sources. This chapter presents an overview of the basic pattern for citations in reference list style, including both reference list entries and parenthetical citations. Examples of parenthetical citations are identified with a P; examples of reference list entries are identified with an R.

In reference list style, you signal that you have used a source by placing a parenthetical citation (including author, date, and relevant page numbers) next to your reference to that source:

According to one scholar, “The railroads had made Chicago the most important meeting place between East and West” (Cronon 1991, 92—93).

At the end of the paper, you list all sources in a reference list. That list normally includes every source you cited in a parenthetical citation and sometimes others you consulted but did not cite. Since parenthetical citations do not include complete bibliographical information for a source, you must include that information in your reference list. All reference list entries have the same general form:

R: Cronon, William. 1991. Nature's metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Readers expect you to follow the rules for correct citations exactly. These rules cover not only what data you must include and their order, but also punctuation, capitalization, italicizing, and so on. To get your citations right, you must pay close attention to many minute details that few researchers can easily remember. The next chapter provides a ready reference guide to those details.

18.1 Basic patterns

Although sources and their citations come in almost endless variety, you are likely to use only a few kinds. While you may need to look up details to cite some unusual sources, you can easily learn the basic patterns for the few kinds you will use most often. You can then create templates that will help you record bibliographical data quickly and reliably as you read.

The rest of this section describes the basic patterns, and figure 18.1 provides templates for examples of several common types of sources. Chapter 19 includes examples of a wide range of sources, including exceptions to the patterns discussed here.

18.1.1 Order of elements

The order of elements in reference list entries follows the same general pattern for all types of sources: author, date (year) of publication, title, other facts of publication. Parenthetical citations include only the first two of these elements. If they cite specific passages, they also include page numbers or other locating information; reference list entries do not, though they do include a full span of page numbers for a source that is part of a larger whole, such as an article or a chapter.