How to Cite in a Research Paper

Citing in APA, MLA and Chicago styles

Summarizing

1. Summarizing is indirect citation. When you summarize, remember that your main objective is to condense and restate.

2. You need to extract the main ideas from the original passage and convert them into your own words and sentence structures.

3. When you summarize, you do not simply restate an idea. You task is to analyze the whole writing or its significant part and present a main idea or conclusion made.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is indirect citation as well. To paraphrase, you will be required to write more than when summarizing. You will also be required to restate the original idea.

1. Paraphrasing actually means rewording and making use of different sentence structures to convey the same meaning.

2. In this case, you convey the meaning of one or few sentences by the means of different one or few sentences.

3. The original meaning in the original passage is not distorted either.

4. Avoid generalizing in your citation. You may develop your own thoughts later, but the citation has to be precise.

Quoting

Using direct quotations to cite in an academic research paper is the most popular way that academicians and researchers use to give credit in the research and writing process. So how to cite in a research paper using quotes?

1. Simply write a sentence or utterance of an author word by word and enclose these words in quotation marks.

2. It is highly recommended to use quotations to steer clear of awkward or wordy paraphrasing and add trustworthiness to your paper.

Take into account that both direct and indirect citation approaches are formatted differently according to different styles. For example, APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association) require parentheses references, while Chicago style recognized only research paper footnotes and endnotes. Accordingly, the research paper bibliography page has different structures in these styles.

Have a look at Chicago formatting style in one of our essay samples.

Footnote: ¹ Sonya O. Rose, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Glass in Nineteenth-Century England (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), 8, 9, 13, 16.

Bibliography entry: Rose, Sonya O. Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Glass in Nineteenth-Century England. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992.

MLA research paper sample offers the following format.

Parenthesis: “One would like to know in what characters he took down Barrekub’s instructions. The twin sphinxes of Zenjirli, Sakje-Geuzi, and Carchemish were ultimately derived from Egypt, but in view of the absence of other traces of Egyptian influence in the Zenjirli sculptures, the scribe’s presence at the royal court is quite unexpected” (King 16).

Bibliography entry: King, Leonard W. Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition. London: Oxford University Press, 1918. Print.

APA sample research paper would cite sources the following way.

Parenthesis: In the mid sixties, the first term of EI appeared in a German publication, written by Leuner, where he discussed women who rejected their social roles by being separated by their mothers at an early age (Clark, 2004).

Bibliography entry: Clark, D. (2004). Emotional Intelligence. Retrieved August 9, 2007 from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/performance/ei.html