Citation

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If you need to cite text from any source, please make sure that it is marked as quoted text and that the source is correctly put in a footnote.

Marking text as quoted

Text that is quoted from elsewhere should always be set off from the rest of the text, so that it is easily possible to recognize it as cited. There are very simple methods to do this:

  1. Place the entire quote within quotation marks
  2. Change the font to Italics
  3. Very long passages of cited text can additionally be formatted in a smaller font

Here are some examples to show you how to do it and how it will look:

''"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit."''
<blockquote>
''"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit."''
</blockquote>
<small><blockquote>
''"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit."''
</small></blockquote>

This results in:

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit."

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit."

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit."

How to reference citations

Single words

Single words that need further explanation, or that are someone else's definitions should be referenced like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor[1] sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit[2].

The footnote is placed immediately after the the word. If the word is the last in the sentence, the footnote is placed after the word but before the full stop that ends the sentence. Placing it after, the footnote would reference to the entire sentence.

Sentences

If you quote a sentence from someone else within your text, or if you want to give an explanation to an entire statement that would not fit in your text, you could do it like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nullam ut pede sit amet velit consectetuer imperdiet. "Maecenas ut metus ut nunc ullamcorper facilisis."[3] Ut est dui, euismod nec, sagittis quis, scelerisque sollicitudin, arcu.[4]

The footnote is placed immediately after the closing quotation mark of the sentence. Placing it somewhere within the sentence, it would reference to the word next to it.

Paragraphs

One of the best possibilities to quote an entire paragraph is this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nullam ut pede sit amet velit consectetuer imperdiet. Maecenas ut metus ut nunc ullamcorper facilisis. Ut est dui, euismod nec, sagittis quis, scelerisque sollicitudin, arcu. Phasellus dapibus ipsum eget mi. Fusce rhoncus. Nunc pretium turpis vel diam. Nulla magna turpis, gravida vel, posuere mollis, porta eget, erat. Ut luctus pulvinar velit. Nunc in dui id diam posuere mollis. Donec consequat elit ut nunc.

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nullam ut pede sit amet velit consectetuer imperdiet. Maecenas ut metus ut nunc ullamcorper facilisis. Ut est dui, euismod nec, sagittis quis, scelerisque sollicitudin, arcu. Phasellus dapibus ipsum eget mi. Fusce rhoncus. Nunc pretium turpis vel diam. Nulla magna turpis, gravida vel, posuere mollis, porta eget, erat. Ut luctus pulvinar velit. Nunc in dui id diam posuere mollis. Donec consequat elit ut nunc."[5]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nullam ut pede sit amet velit consectetuer imperdiet. Maecenas ut metus ut nunc ullamcorper facilisis. Ut est dui, euismod nec, sagittis quis, scelerisque sollicitudin, arcu. Phasellus dapibus ipsum eget mi. Fusce rhoncus. Nunc pretium turpis vel diam. Nulla magna turpis, gravida vel, posuere mollis, porta eget, erat. Ut luctus pulvinar velit. Nunc in dui id diam posuere mollis. Donec consequat elit ut nunc.

Again the footnote is placed after the closing quotation mark at the end of the paragraph and the quoted paragraph is set off visually from the rest of the text to mark it as a quote.

Formatting the footnotes

Citations from literature

If you cite literature, the information in the footnote for the quoted text should look like the footnote for this sentence.[6] If you quote from the same book but from another page you can do it like in the footnote for this sentence.[7] "ibid." is short for the Latin "ibidem", which means "in the same place". I our case it references to the same book that was mentioned in the footnote before.

Citations from websites

The best way to format a footnote for a citation from a website would be the one shown in this sentence's footnote.[8]

Make sure to link to the page directly where you've found the the text you quoted. It is also a good idea to include the date when you found the quoted text there as it might not be there anymore a couple of weeks later.

Personal quotes

Sometimes the case my occur that you want to quote someone personally, which means that you neither have literature, nor a website as a reference. In this case you can either use this method[9], or if it was an email, letter or something the like you can also use this style[10].

"This footnote might serve as a better example for personal quotes."[11]

Related articles

References

  1. lat.: pain
  2. Example for a footnote referencing the last word in a sentence
  3. Source of the quote
  4. Author's note: This is a meaningless sentence that is not even real Latin!
  5. Source of the paragraph
  6. Author's surname, First name (Year): Title of the book. Subtitle of the book. Where published: Publisher, page: 1
  7. ibid., page 2
  8. From: Website with the source for the quotation, last viewed on DD/MM/YYYY
  9. First name Surname, quoted after personal conversation on DD/MM/YYYY in location
  10. First name Surname, quoted after personal correspondence by letter/e-mail/etc. on DD/MM/YYYY
  11. Tommy Atkins, quoted after personal correspondence by mail on 02/03/2008