Citation Tips for Dissertations

When writing a dissertation, it will be prudent for you to cite your sources appropriately to avoid instances of plagiarism. There are many styles of citing available to writers. The referencing style you will choose will determine the citation style you will use for your whole dissertation. However, some instructors may prefer you reference and cite using different styles. This article will provide an insight into the various citing styles. It will also discuss citation techniques used for various sources.

APA format

When in-text citing using this format, the citations must have the authors’ names and the year of publication enclosed in brackets. The two are separated by a comma, for example, (George, 2014).

MLA format

The in-text citation in this format includes the author’s name and the page number from which the information was obtained, for example, (Brian 44).

Chicago/Turabian format

These two styles mainly use the footnote style to cite sources used. A superscript number is indicated in the text and a corresponding footnote explanation.

Harvard style

This style employs both the year and page number alongside with the name of the author.

Citations should occur wherever you feel it is necessary. For instance, you may write it at the end or beginning of the sentence. For example: According to Adrian (2009, p34), social media play an important role in society today. This can also be written as; social media is of importance to society (Adrian, 2009, p34).

Writers can also quote texts directly in their dissertations. These should be followed by the correct citation. For single lined quotes, they may appear inside the text as sentence and paragraph continuations. For longer quotations, writers should indent them, single space and use quotation marks at the beginning and end of the quote. Citing such quotations requires writers to indicate the page number from which the quote was obtained.

Movies and films can also be used as sources; whenever they are used, they should be treated as though they are quotations from printed works. The only difference is that they will not have page numbers. When citing a website source in your paper, do not write the website’s URL as the in-text citation.

When citing articles written by more than three authors, you are required to write the names of the first two authors and use “et al” to represent the others. For instance, an article written by John, Alfa, Festine, Anne, Enock and Pauline should be cited (John et al. 2014).

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