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Library

Using and Citing Information

Remember:

When you discover a book, periodical article, video, web site, or other work that you might just possibly use in a class assignment, make a note of the complete bibliographic citation. When the time comes to present your research (as a paper or in some other form), you will need these citations to accurately document the sources that you used.  

You may wish to consider using EndNote Software to manage your citations. Many of the Library's resources are compatible with EndNote.

What are the basic elements of a citation?

A citation contains enough information to describe precisely the work you used, so that the work can be found again with ease.

Complete citations are also necessary if you wish to obtain material not held in Bowdoin's Libraries. Consult a Reference Librarian, or the staff of the Interlibrary Loan Department for more information on loans from other libraries.

For books, a citation contains at least these elements:

  • Author(s), all of them,
  • Title, from the title page, not the cover,
  • If part of a larger work, such as a book of collected papers, the title of the larger work,
  • Publisher,
  • Place of Publication,
  • Date,
  • Page numbers of the sections you used,
  • Recommended: Library location and call number.

For articles:

  • Author(s), at least the first two,
  • Article title, all of it,
  • Title of the periodical, from the title page, not the cover,
  • Volume,
  • Issue,
  • Date,
  • Page numbers.

For on-line resources:

  • Author
  • Title of document
  • Title of complete document (if applicable)
  • Date of document's latest revision
  • Web address of document
  • Date that the document was accessed/read
  • Other material types have their own citation rules. Consult a guide, like the ones listed below.

How do I cite material I've used?

A variety of style guides, such as the commonly used MLA Handbook, are used on campus and are available in the Library. The Library also maintains links to Web editions of several guides at http://library.bowdoin.edu/eref/write.shtml.

In some courses, your instructor may instead specify a style commonly used in her or his own field.

Search the library catalog to find copies of other style guides. The College Bookstore also stocks the most popular guides. Other useful resources on citation styles, and writing in general, include Bowdoin's Writing Project and Sources: Their Use and Acknowledgement, published on the Web by Dartmouth College.

This page maintained by Caroline Moseley. Last update: July 9, 2004.