Citation as Support for What You Say
Citation as support for what you say:
When asserting specific facts, such as the population of an area, the occurrence of an event at a specific time, particularly with any details, or any facts not commonly known, a credible source should be cited to demonstrate the accuracy of the concrete fact(s). Reference books are often acceptable for this sort of citation.[1] For current events, a top rank newspaper is acceptable. Although the student may be tempted to use Wikipedia, some instructors may be suspicious that it is an inadequate source. Fact citations should follow (Author, date, page) in most circumstances. If the whole article is relevant, then use (Author, date) . If citing a graphic, such as a table or chart, give the table, chart or other graphic number as well as the page number as in (Author, date, Table n, page).
Citing factual data from Internet sources:
It can be especially difficult to adequately cite factual data from internet sources. Here are some things to consider:
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When asserting specific facts, such as the population of an area, the occurrence of an event at a specific time, particularly with any details, or any facts not commonly known, a credible source should be cited to demonstrate the accuracy of the concrete fact(s). Reference books are often acceptable for this sort of citation.[1] For current events, a top rank newspaper is acceptable. Although the student may be tempted to use Wikipedia, some instructors may be suspicious that it is an inadequate source. Fact citations should follow (Author, date, page) in most circumstances. If the whole article is relevant, then use (Author, date) . If citing a graphic, such as a table or chart, give the table, chart or other graphic number as well as the page number as in (Author, date, Table n, page).
- Example: In 2000, there were 281,421,906 people living in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009).
- Example: Civil War draft riots took place in New York City in July 1863, just a short while after the major Union victory in Gettysburg (The New York Times guide to essential knowledge, 2007, 563).
- Example: In 1997, Nassau, New York’s tax equalization rate was 95.66 (McCall, 1998, Table 4, p. 182).
Citing factual data from Internet sources:
It can be especially difficult to adequately cite factual data from internet sources. Here are some things to consider:
- General reference to a website, such as https://www.census.gov/ is completely useless as a citation to factual data. It is impossible for the user to refer back to this link and find the data you used. Your citation must be sufficiently specific for your user to be able to find the data, this means that you must provide the URL to the actual page on which you found the data. You should also provide the title to that page unless there is no title at all.
- Some services, such as the census, provide data through a database lookup procedure. You have not fully documented your source unless you have provided guidance as to the specific steps taken to use the database lookup.
- Some web pages are very large, you may have to provide some guidance as to where on the page to look.
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[1] Some instructors may not accept the substitution of dictionary definitions of terms that are more thoroughly examined in the texts you are using.