A Works Cited page is a formatted list of all sources you cited within your paper. Any time you quote, paraphrase, summarize, or include information that you've read from an outside source, you must include that source in your references list, correctly formatted in MLA style.
Basic rules
- Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper.
- Label the page Works Cited (do not italicize the words Works Cited or put them in quotation marks) and center the words Works Cited at the top of the page.
- Double space all citations, but do not skip spaces between entries.
Remember, a Works Cited page is written in MLA format and lists every work that you cited in your paper. It does not include all the sources you used in your research. The referenced works are listed alphabetically by the author's last name or, if there's no author name, by the first word of the title.
Create a bibliography, citations, and references
- Put your cursor at the end of the text you want to cite.
- Go to References > Style, and choose a citation style.
- Select Insert Citation.
- Choose Add New Source and fill out the information about your source.
- What errors need to be corrected on this works cited page? Check all that apply. The page title should not be bolded and underlined. The first entry needs the author's name. The second entry needs a hanging indent. The last entry needs to have a date accessed. The citations should be in alphabetical order.
Citing or documenting the sources used in your research serves three purposes: It gives proper credit to the authors of the words or ideas that you incorporated into your paper. It allows those who are reading your work to locate your sources, in order to learn more about the ideas that you include in your paper.
When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, for example, (Jones, 1998), and a complete reference should appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.
Author's last name, First name. "Article Name." Title of web magazine (Italicized)," publication date, URL.
How do you format your Works Cited page? Start each entry on new line, regular left margin, Indent the second and all subsequent lines ("hanging indent") Double space all lines.
ALWAYS CITE, in the following cases:
- When you quote two or more words verbatim, or even one word if it is used in a way that is unique to the source.
- When you introduce facts that you have found in a source.
- When you paraphrase or summarize ideas, interpretations, or conclusions that you find in a source.
A hanging indent is required to format your works cited or bibliography properly. See the image below for an example of what a hanging indent looks like. Follow the instructions below to format a hanging indent in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
Why citing is importantIt's important to cite sources you used in your research for several reasons: To show your reader you've done proper research by listing sources you used to get your information. To be a responsible scholar by giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas.
Citations have several important purposes: to uphold intellectual honesty (or avoiding plagiarism), to attribute prior or unoriginal work and ideas to the correct sources, to allow the reader to determine independently whether the referenced material supports the author's argument in the claimed way, and to help the
Information that always must be cited—whether web-based or print-based—includes:
- Quotations, opinions, and predictions, whether directly quoted or paraphrased.
- Statistics derived by the original author.
- Visuals in the original.
- Another author's theories.
- Case studies.
The first time you cite a source, it is almost always a good idea to mention its author(s), title, and genre (book, article, or web page, etc.). If the source is central to your work, you may want to introduce it in a separate sentence or two, summarizing its importance and main ideas.
There are certain things that do not need documentation or credit, including:
- Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject.
- When you are writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments.
As a student citing is important because it shows your reader (or professor) that you have invested time in learning what has already been learned and thought about the topic before offering your own perspective. It is the practice of giving credit to the sources that inform your work.
What Information Should Be Cited and Why?
- Discuss, summarize, or paraphrase the ideas of an author.
- Provide a direct quotation.
- Use statistical or other data.
- Use images, graphics, videos, and other media.
Failure to acknowledge sources, textual, personal, electronic upon which you have relied is a serious breach of academic integrity. Such a failure can lead to an accusation of plagiarism - defined as the use of any source, published or unpublished, without proper acknowledgement or other forms of academic dishonesty.
Basics
- Do not include enough citations for paraphrased information,
- Paraphrase a source incorrectly,
- Do not use quotation marks, or.
- Directly copy and paste phrasing from a source without quotation marks or citations.
There are (3) major citation styles used in academic writing:
- Modern Language Association (MLA)
- American Psychological Association (APA)
- Chicago, which supports two styles: Notes and Bibliography. Author-Date.
Include an in-text citation when you refer to, summarize, paraphrase, or quote from another source. APA in-text citation style uses the author's last name and the year of publication, for example: (Field, 2005). For direct quotations, include the page number as well, for example: (Field, 2005, p. 14).
A citation (or cite) in legal terminology is a reference to a specific legal source, such as a constitution, a statute, a reported case, a treatise, or a law review article. A standard citation includes first the volume number, then the title of the source, (usually abbreviated) and lastly, a page or section number.
If you knowingly use another person's work without giving them credit, you are committing plagiarism. Plagiarism also extends to ideas and products; taking someone's original idea or product and passing it off as your own. So the ethics of plagiarism is merely the ethics of stealing.
