UMUC Asia - Put it in Writing - Two Standard Formats

1. THE TRADITIONAL FORMAT

Traditionally, citing sources for research papers has involved two tasks:

first, the use of footnotes or endnotes, describing the source of a specific idea, quotation, fact, or term appearing in your paper; and
second, a complete bibliography or works consulted page listing everything you read that helped you better understand your topic.

This is the “standard format” described in the two writing manuals most frequently recommended by the University of Maryland Asian Division Academic Coordinators:

The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers. 14th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations Chicago: University of Chicago Press. A recent edition is the 6th, published in March of 1996.

One or both of these manuals are available in most base libraries.

Footnotes and Endnotes

Footnotes or endnotes are used to document quotations, paraphrased passages, and visual aids. Within the body of the paper, superscript numbers indicate the materials taken from sources. The last portion of a paraphrased passage would look like this:

...similar historical legacy of heavy governmental involvement in business.¹

The notes to which these superscript numbers refer can be placed at the bottom of each page (footnotes) or at the end of the paper (endnotes). Although the form depends on the type of reference material being cited, for the most part a note would appear as follows:

For a book

¹ Min Chen, Asian Management Systems: Chinese, Japanese and Korean Styles of. 
       Business (Routledge: 1995), p. 155.

Notes for a magazine article

² Donna L. Hoffman and Thomas P. Novak, "How to Acquire Customers on the Web", 
       Harvard Business Review 78 (May/June 2000): p. 179.

Notes for a newspaper article

³ Lauren Stiller Rikleen, "Too long a day in court for gender bias", The Boston
       Sunday Globe, 21 May 2000, sec. E, p. 2.

Bibliography

The bibliography (sometimes entitled "References") lists all of the sources used in writing the paper or report. It usually is presented in alphabetical order by the author's last name or the first important word of the title. It lists every source that appears in the footnotes and any additional references consulted but not specifically referred to in the body of the paper. The contents of each bibliography entry match the corresponding footnotes or endnotes except for minor punctuation variations, as can be seen in the following examples:

Bibliography

Chen, Min, Asian Management System: Chinese, Japanese and Korean Styles of Business. 
       Routledge: 1995.
Wilson, J. Holton and Keating, Barry, Business Forecasting, Richard 
	   D. Irwin, Inc., 1994.

2. THE CURRENTLY FAVORED FORMAT

Reference Citations or In-Text Citations

An alternative to the traditional “superscript-plus-notes” is the “citations-plus-works” (references) cited has become increasingly popular, especially in English, psychology, and the sciences. This system is recommended by the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA).

References eliminate the need for separate notes and bibliography. References are found at the end of research papers, book chapters and reports. They follow the same format as does a regular bibliography, but in-text citations replace the superscript numbers.

There are three main types of reference citations:

Author-Date System

Key Number System

MLA Simplified System

(1) The Author-Date System provides the author's last name, the date of publication, and page numbers if necessary. In the body of the paper, it may appear as follows:

...heavy governmental involvement in business. (Chen, 1995, 155).

(2) The Key Number System works by numbering the sources which appear in the bibliography. In the body of the paper, it may appear as follows:

...heavy governmental involvement in business. (1.155).

The first number is the one assigned to the source in the bibliography and the second number represents the page number. Within the bibliography, the sources may be listed in the order they appear in the paper rather than in alphabetical order.

(3) The MLA Simplified Style provides the author's name and the page reference. In the body of the paper, it may appear as follows:

...the steps to obtaining success (Bower 42).

Works Cited references generally look like this:

For a book

Brown, Weldon A. The Last Chopper: The Denouement of the American Role
       in Vietnam, l963-l975. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1976.

For an article

Burstein, Paul. “Senate Voting on the Vietnam War, l964-l973.” Journal of Political
       and Military Sociology 7 (Fall l979), 27l-82.

For an unsigned newspaper article (alphabetized by title)

“Crisis in Asia: The Vietcong Launch Their ‘Revolution,’” New York Times,
       4 February l968, sec. 4, p. E1.

For an Internet reference

Caravallo, Tito V. "Hue, Mass Murder, Mass Burial." Viet-Nam Bulletin, April, 
       1970. Found at <http://www.saigon.com/regions/hue/>, May 1, 1998

Additional Information

For more extensive treatment of references and format, refer to UMUC’s reference material and APA Guide as well as discussions and examples of Internet citations at Beyond the MLA Handbook by Andrew Harnack and Gene Kleppinger.

Further examples of the MLA simplified style can be found in Writing in Literature and Philosophy.

Superscripts and footnotes or endnotes; in-text citations and works cited: whichever system you choose, you must provide information about the author and the work (the author's name, the title, and the edition or volume number), and publication information (the place of publication, the publisher, the date, and any relevant page numbers).