Citing Sources of Information 引文及列明出處: Understanding Citations

A citation is a brief summary that provides all the necessary information about books, articles and other materials so that someone else can easily find your sources on their own. Citations consist of standard elements, and contain all the information necessary to identify and track down the information source, including:

      author name(s)

      titles of books, articles, and journals

      date of publication

      page numbers

      volume and issue numbers (for articles)

引文(Citation)是指文章主體中簡短的書目資訊，用以指引閱讀者去看文末完整的參考書目(References/Works Cited)。一般來說，引文包括以下資料，以方便讀者找到原文：

      作者

      書名/期刊名稱/期刊文章題目

      出版日期

      頁數

      期刊期數

Below are the citations of a book and a journal article. Can you tell the differences?

Shotton, M. A. (1989). Computer addiction? A study of computer dependency. London, England: Taylor & Francis.

Light, M. A., & Light, I. H. (2008). The geographic expansion of Mexican immigration in the United States and its implications for local law enforcement. Law Enforcement Executive Forum Journal, 8 (1), 73–82 .

Citations consist of standard elements including author name(s), titles of books, articles, and journals, date of publication, page numbers, and volume and issue numbers. They may look different depending on what was being cited and which style was being used. The following examples (in APA style) show you how to understand citation of different items:

A book citation:

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You know it is a book citation when:

• there is only one title and it appears in italic (or underlined);
• there are publisher's name and location;
• there is no page number.

A citation of section/chapter from a book:

You know it is a citation of section/chapter from a book when:

• there is a title of the section/chapter (Philosophy and the science of subjective well-being). This title may be in quotation marks sometimes;
• there is another title (The science of subjective well-being). This is the title of the book. This title is often in italic or underlined;
• there are words such as "In" and/or "Ed(s)" or "edited by";
• there area publisher's name and location;
• there are page numbers.

A journal article citation:

You know it is a journal article citation when:

• there is a title of the article (The geographical expansion of Mexican immigration in the United States and its implications for local law enforcement). This title may be in quotation marks sometimes;
• there is another title (Law Enforcement Executive Forum Journal). This is the title of the journal. This title is often in italic or underlined;
• there are volume number and issue numbers;
• there are page numbers; 
• there is no information of publisher.

A website citation:

You know it is a citation of website when there is:

• the words "Retrieved from" and/or a URL.

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