English 8 & Honors English 8 - Research & Persuasion: Citations

When do we give credit?

The key to avoiding plagiarism is to make sure you give credit where it is due. This may be credit for something somebody said, wrote, emailed, drew, or implied. Many professional organizations, including the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Psychological Association (APA), have lengthy guidelines for citing sources.

So how do we cite sources?

• NoodleTools: FCPS has purchased subscriptions to NoodleTools for all students. If you would like to use this online source, click HERE to get started! See the link to the right if you'd like to learn about registering for the first time. 

• Purdue OWL: Purdue OWL is a fantastic quick reference. The guidelines are clear and always include examples to mimic. To get started, click HERE.

• ​Creative Commons: In addition to giving credit to the creator of ideas, images, music, etc., it is important to make sure you have permission to use the materials. Begin at Creative Commons for searchable images, media, and music that are available for public use! Make sure you give attribution for anything that you use. Click HERE to check it out!  

MLA 7 vs. MLA 8 comparison sheet

Key differences between MLA 7 and MLA 8 include: 

• City of Publication: This is usually omitted in MLA 8. 
• Medium of Publication (e.g. “Print,” “Web”): Omitted in MLA 8 (but see below re: ebooks) 
• Date Accessed: Optional in MLA 8. 
• URLs: These were omitted in MLA 7 because they were generally not a very stable way of locating a source, but are recommended in MLA 8 because there is a growing availability of persistent links (DOIs or permalinks) and even obsolete links can provide information that can help a reader find the item cited. 
• Spelling Out Terms: Contributor roles that were abbreviated in MLA 7 (editor, translator, etc.) are spelled out in full in MLA 8; descriptors of numbers (volume, number, page) that were omitted entirely in MLA 7 are included in abbreviated form in MLA 8. This makes citations easier for readers to decipher. 
• Simplified Punctuation: Colons and parenthesis are no longer used to set apart some elements in MLA 8; commas and periods separate the elements in each citation.