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HIS 101: History of Western Civilization I (Campbell-Loudoun)

This guide has been created to help you find books, articles, videos, and other types of resources related to this program of study. Direct comments to Julie Combs, jcombs@nvcc.edu.

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For individual research help, schedule an appointment to meet with a librarian.


Why and When to Cite

Why to Cite:

  • Give credit to the authors of the sources you used.
  • Provide evidence you did research -- good, credible sources give your work more authority.
  • Allows your reader to locate the sources you used.
  • Avoid plagiarism.

When to Cite:

You should cite a source if you reproducequoteparaphrase, or summarize ideas and/or media created by other individuals. When in doubt, cite!

A Note for Chicago Citations

Chicago Manual of Style gives writers two different methods for documenting sources: the Author-Date System and the Notes-Bibliography (NB) System. As its name suggests, Author-Date uses parenthetical citations in the text to reference the source's author's last name and the year of publication. Each parenthetical citation corresponds to an entry on a References page that concludes the document. 

By contrast, NB uses numbered footnotes in the text to direct the reader to a shortened citation at the bottom of the page. This corresponds to a fuller citation on a Bibliography page that concludes the document. Though the general principles of citation are the same here, the citations themselves are formatted differently from the way they appear in Author-Date.

Make sure you are using the same citation methods throughout your research assignments.