HIST 125/ Citation Guide
You are required to use this guide and the formats in it for every course assignment.
The function of citations is to show your readers that not only have you done your homework and know what you are talking about, but that you have given credit where credit is due. As with any laboratory experiment you might seek to replicate, so it is with social science and humanities research: people who read your research need to know how you arrived at your results. You may think that your citations and bibliography will not be important but they are two of the primary ways I check your work. So sloppy or poor documentation will get my attention, and not in a good way.
For various assignments in this course you will be working with a variety of sources: the textbook, historical documents (themselves quite varied) and essays by historians on various topics. In some cases you will make use of online sources we have been working with in class, such as entries from American National Biography Online or other web sources. It is crucial that you indicate where your information comes from and that you do it in a specific, consistent manner.
Academic dishonesty is defined as those actions by which a student fulfills her obligation to an assignment by unethical or prohibited means such as, but not limited to, cheating on a test or
consulting with others about how to answer questions on a take-home exam. Plagiarism is a form
of academic dishonesty which involves the presentation, willful or unwitting, of someone else’s
work as one’s own. This includes the use of direct quotations and paraphrases, as well as
excessive borrowing of the organizational pattern of a given source. Such sources include, but are not limited to, visual and printed materials, manuscripts, other students’ work, and classroom
lectures.
Avoiding academic dishonesty and plagiarism is a learning process for all scholars and this should be taken into consideration when dealing with violations. In the case of minor or first offenses, an informal resolution may be warranted. In which, the faculty member would resolve the matter directly with the student. In the case of serious or repeated offenses, or if an informal resolution was unacceptable to either of the parties involved, then the procedures for reporting academic violations will be followed. These are found in Section B of the “Bluebook,” which describes the judicial system.
Citation format:
There are two ways scholars use information in their research – by quoting directly from material or by paraphrasing it – putting another scholar’s information into their own words. Paraphrases, while not direct quotes, are still coming from a source and so credit must be given to that source. Beware, paraphrases that sound just like the direct quote (you changed a word here or there) are direct quotes. Do not try to pass one off as the other; that too is academically dishonest.
Unless otherwise indicated, for course assignments, instead of using footnotes at the bottom of the page, use the following format for citing your sources:
Paged material: Books, journal articles (both print and electronic):
Direct quotation:
“As many middle-class women acquired leisure time and enhanced purchasing power, they also won new freedoms” (Nash p. 539).
Notice the brevity of this citation. When you cite the Nash text, for example, do not cite the full name of the author and the title of his book every time you use that source. Use the short method given above.
Handouts: For handouts a page long, you do not need to give the page number. But if it is more than one page, you need to cite the page number. Handouts downloaded and printed from the course’s Canvas page, or from a pdf. file usually provide page numbers, and if they don’t, you can count:
“The United States is the world’s best hope, but if you fetter her in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her power for good and endanger her very existence” (Lodge, p. 1)
This tells me that you are citing the handout titled Henry Cabot Lodge, “Against the League of Nations.”
Web pages: Use your common sense to cite such sources by author, and short title if necessary.
For example:
“While other northerners retreated from Reconstruction, Nast reaffirmed the necessity of federal intervention to stop white supremacist terrorism in the South” (Simpson, ANBO).
This tells me you are citing from the American National Biography Online entry on Thomas Nast, written by Brooks Simpson.
Use the same format when paraphrasing material from any source you use.
When in doubt, keep in mind that the goal is for the professor to be able to easily find from the information you furnish where exactly this information came from. This is work you are expected to do; if you make the professor do it (i.e. make her go hunt down your sources due to your lack of an accurate bibliography), she will give herself that part of your grade.
You may find that you are using a single source to write a specific paragraph. In that case, you do not need to cite this source after every sentence; you can cite the source at the end of the place in the paragraph where you last use information from that source. This cuts down on having to put a citation at the end of every sentence while still indicating accurately where your information is coming from.
Do not use “blanket citations” i.e. pp. 114-137, or Chapter 8, etc. Each paragraph should indicate precisely where the information in that paragraph came from.
Bibliography Format
Your bibliography comes at the end of your paper, on a separate page with entries listed in alphabetical order by author, or if no author is given, then by title.
If an assignment requires a bibliography page, you are required to use the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) format.
The CMOS website features a “Notes and Bibliography: Sample Citations” page:
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html
Easy Bib also has a “Citation Basics” for using CMOS:
And always feel free to e-mail or ask me in person about any of these formats.
Below are some examples of bibliographic formats for various kinds of sources you may use in course assignments:
The course texts:
Nash, Gary B. and Julie Roy Jeffrey, et al. The American People: Creating a Nation and a
Society, Volume II, From 1865, Concise Eighth Edition, 2017.
Binder, Frederick and David Reimers. The Way We Lived: Essays and Documents in American
Social History. Seventh Edition. 2008.
ANB Online entry:
Simpson, Brooks D. “Thomas Nast.” American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.
http://www.anb.org/articles/17/17-00616.html. Accessed Jan 20, 2014.
Course handouts:
Some of these will provide more information than others about who wrote it and where it came from:
Lodge, Henry Cabot. “Against the League of Nations” 1919. http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/lodge_leagueofnations.htm
Others will not:
Labor History Timeline, course handout.
Article in a print journal:
Perry, Elisabeth. “Cleaning Up the Dance Halls,” History Today. Vol. 39 Issue 10, (October 1989): 20-26.
Print journal from an online source:
Perry, Elisabeth. “Cleaning Up the Dance Halls,” History Today. Vol. 39 Issue 10, (October 1989): 20-26. Academic Search Complete.
Website
Hine, Lewis. “Child Labor in America 1908-1912: Photographs of Lewis W. Hine.” The History Place. 1998-2010. http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/about.htm
Specific documents on websites may also need documentation. For example, if you are discussing a particular photograph by Lewis Hine from the above website, you should cite it:
Hine, Lewis. Furman Owens. Photograph. “Child Labor in America 1908-1912: Photographs of Lewis W. Hine.” The History Place. 1998-2010. http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/hine-furman.htm
Websites may have subtitles so include them as well. Always check your links to make sure they go to the specific page where the information or image you are citing can be found. Be careful, posting the home page URL of a site that contains lots of documents is not sufficient. The URL must go to the page where the document or source being cited can be found.
If you are having trouble accessing a link that worked just fine an hour ago, try using the Wayback Machine housed at the Internet Archive. This organization takes regular snapshots of all the sites on the web. If you know the URL, many times you can find the site using their search engine, especially if you could access the site earlier.
Try it and see: https://archive.org/web/
Writing Essay Exams
Open-book, take-home essays provide a lot of room for students to make the most use of the material and allow sufficient time to write an effective, thoughtful answer to the essay question. This essay should be typed, double-spaced and not more than five pages in length. There is also a minimum requirement of three pages to get a passing grade on this assignment. I prefer the Times New Roman font and require it to be in 12 point type with not more than one inch margins. Enlarging the type from 12 to 14 is not an acceptable way to meet this requirement.
You have spent time reading and discussing the assigned texts, documents, handouts; now it is time to apply what you have learned. The goal here is to show me how well you know the material and can use it in ways that give evidence you have mastered it. You should make use of the class texts as well as material from relevant handouts that are assigned reading in answering the essay question.
Things to check before you write and before you turn in your paper:
You may not include any additional material or sources outside of what has been assigned in the syllabus (such as other printed or online material) unless you consult the instructor beforehand. The idea here is to see how well you have mastered the material we have been reading and discussing in the class, in particular your ability to make effective use of the primary source documents, and historians’ essays about the period under study. Substituting discussion of other material in place of analyzing the assigned material will result in a substantial reduction in your grade and possibly get you an F on the assignment.
Pay attention to the wording of the questions. Be sure you cover all that is being asked. These questions are keyed to the readings, particularly the essays and historical documents you have read.
Students who write their essay largely from the textbook (the Nash text) and make little or no use of other relevant sources will not receive a passing grade.
Also be sure to work within the page limits given – papers that do not meet the minimum requirement will not receive a passing grade. Papers that go substantially over the page limit will also lose points. A paragraph over the page limit is not a problem, two pages over that limit is.
Your essay should:
-Have a title that reflects the content of your answer. The less mechanical the better. In other
words, try to avoid a title that quotes back to me something from my own essay question.
Reading that several times over gets pretty dull. You don’t need a title page either.
-Make use of a variety of sources drawn from the assigned readings
-Use appropriate evidence and analysis
-Begin with an introductory paragraph(s) that shows clearly which question you are answering
and how you intend to answer it
-End with a concluding paragraph that ties your points together
Your essay should be written in formal language and employ formal standards of usage. This means no contractions, abbreviations, no lists, no outlines, also no triple spacing between paragraphs, etc. Paragraphs should be indented. You should avoid writing in the first person and be consistent in your verb tenses (past tense is best for writing about the past).
You may not consult with one another on your essays, however you may make use of someone at the Academic Support Center to proof your draft for grammar, style, and punctuation. The content and organization must be your own.
As you have the texts and any notes you have taken in front of you, you may be wondering what exactly I will be grading you on. Some of the things I look for in an essay is your ability to
-identify and make effective use of readings relevant to the question being answered
-show an awareness of historical context – of showing who, when where the persons,
events or material you are discussing took place.
–write about the material in your own words, not the words of the authors
–use multiple authors in discussing the same topic; this shows me you are not dependent
on one author, that you know the material thoroughly, and avoids the temptation to simply paraphrase a single author
–know the difference between quoting and paraphrasing material
–quote judiciously, especially from primary sources
–integrate quotations into your text; to introduce them and make them grammatically
correct.
–analyze material you have read
–formulate an answer, organize it in a logical sequence, and provide specific examples
and evidence drawn from the texts and handouts to support your points
Essays that fail to make use of the assigned documents in the syllabus will not get a very high grade as this is what I most look for: your ability to make use of the class readings that present the historical record, to quote it, paraphrase it, and analyze it.
You are required to use the citation guide posted on this course’s Canvas page. Essays that fail to document their sources will receive zero credit. Partial or poor documentation will also lose you points.
Things to Avoid:
Many students make the mistake of thinking that if they mention a document in passing in their essay they have taken care of discussing and analyzing it. For example:
“In Roosevelt’s inaugural address, he assured the American people that the Depression was not their fault and now must fight to bring about changes. He outlined the ideas he had, to present a ‘line of attack.’”
This is what I call mentioning a document. This shows some knowledge of its content, but the writer does not go on to tell us in what specific ways Franklin Roosevelt’s Inaugural address reassured Americans. Nor does the writer go on to inform us what ideas FDR actually outlined for his “line of attack.” Hence, I would give a much lower grade for this minimal demonstration of knowledge than if a student could quote examples from the document itself to illustrate their points.
A particular challenge in writing this sort of essay is resisting the temptation to simply copy out sections of the text, paraphrasing as you go, documenting the source, etc. This is not going to get you much credit as you are basically having the author of the text write the essay for you. If I see long sections with sequential pages cited and consultation of the text indicates you are copying out whole sections, it will result in a substantial lowering of your grade. You must also resist the temptation to string a series of direct quotations together, drawn from different sources, even thought well-documented. Such a cut-and-paste method shows me you can cut and paste, but not that you really know the material well enough to analyze and discuss it in your own words, and will also not get you a very good grade.
