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Middle School Science Resources: Citing Sources

  • Give credit where credit is due.  The author worked hard to create the source you have chose to incorporate into your project! 
  • Leave "information breadcrumbs" for yourself and for your teacher.  By recording the right information about your source, you and your teacher will be to follow your trail and locate your sources.
  • Avoid plagiarism. Don't take credit for knowledge or ideas that you did not develop on your own.
  • A good works cited list keeps your organized.  If you record relevant information about each source as you go, you won't have to scramble to track down information later.

Connect to NoodleTools

Click image below to access NoodleTools:

1) Create a New Project for each new research project.

2) Each project will include citations for every one of your sources.  

3) Determine what type of source BEFORE you create your citation in NoodleTools.  Is it a reference source like an encyclopedia?  Is it a magazine or newspaper article? Is it a website?  Is it a paper book?  Is it a video or a digital image? If you don't know, ask Ms. Crow.

4) Remember, you might not be able to fill in all the blanks for each citation.  That's okay!  

5) If you have questions about sources or about how to fill in the citation forms, ask Ms. Crow.

6) When all citations are completed, you can Print/Export, creating a properly formatted Works Cited sheet.

What to Cite

You must cite:

  • Facts, figures, ideas, or other information that is not common knowledge

  • Ideas, words, theories, or exact language that another person used in other publications

  • Publications that must be cited include:  books, book chapters, articles, web pages, theses, etc.

  • Another person's exact words should be quoted and cited to show proper credit 

When in doubt, be safe and cite your source!

Citation Details

Citing a source means that you show that you took words, ideas, images, etc. from another place.

Citations are a short way to uniquely identify a published work (e.g. book, article, chapter, web site).  They are found in Works Cited lists and are also collected in article and book databases. 

Citations consist of standard elements, and contain all the information necessary to identify and track down publications, depending on the type of source you are citing.  These elements often include:

  • author name(s)
  • titles of books, articles, and magazines or journals
  • date of publication
  • page numbers
  • volume and issue numbers (for articles)
  • URLs and website names 

Citations may look different, depending on what source is being cited and which style was used to create them.  In Middle School at Spence, you will always use MLA (Modern Language Association) style!  

Sources

McReynolds, Georgiana, and MIT Libraries. “Citing Sources: Overview.” Accessed September 28, 2015. http://libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=176032&p=1159439#plagiarism. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License.