Okay, ignore the Spanish. I just felt in a Spanish mood. [Delete it if it's necessary. If there's a rule against that, my apologies. I just really like the Spanish language.] I'm writing a report... actually, I'm writing three reports for my AP European History class. I've always been a little confused about citing my sources. I know the purpose of a bibliography, but I've always been a little shaky on parenthetical citations and their uses. I know that parenthetical citations are used for quotations. Do you also use them if you are using information and putting it all into your own words? I have a bibliography of the websites I used. Do I have to use parenthetical citations when I'm writing without using quotes, or is that only a "quotation thing"? Tell me if you don't understand what I'm trying to ask and I will clarify.
When I put a Spanish phrase in my subject line on a topic I started, they deleted the Spanish and just left the English there. Just sayin.
Eh, doesn't matter to me. All that matters to me is the part of the topic in English. If they delete it, I honestly couldn't care less.
Any source you use for information in a paper, whether you directly quote the source, or paraphrase it, should be cited. Most colleges will require it. Parenthetical citations are used for either quoted material in the text or to indicate a paraphrased piece of information. The parenthetical citation refers the reader to the full citation in the Bibliography.
-face palm- This paper is going to be butchered by parenthetic citations. What I shall do is just alternate between sources in my paragraphs so that I can just cite my source in the last sentence of the paragraph. I'm getting the same information from both websites, it'd get messy if I just went. He was born... (site one). His father died in... (site two). He lived with... (site one). He went to... (site two). It just looks so disgustingly messy. So I have to cite everything, even if there are often switches? Can someone show me an example of a research paper cited the way I should be citing it?
ever hear of footnotes?... and those little superscript numbers? why don't you just google for a sample research paper complete with citations?
I have, but we were never taught to use footnotes in my school and we've always relied on parenthetical citation. And I will, I was just wondering if someone had any good ones in mind.
It is also perfectly okay to use one citation for a whole paragraph as long as all the info is from one book. Just paraphrase all the information and instead of saying which page each item came from, put (author, ch 1-6) or smething like that. At least that was how I was allowed to do it in college. Also remember that there are certain things that people just know, like the year your country became independent, that you don't necessarily have to cite.
