Citing Sources

Citing Sources
To cite: To quote, word for word, someone else’s writing as an example, to support an argument, or explain what’s being said.
There are basically two types of citations. One is:
1. An in-text citation: This is for shorter citations and appears as a part of your text. You must do the following to set it off from the rest of your text…
a. Place it in quote marks.
b. Place the author and page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence.
c. To leave out text, use the ellipsis.

Biofuels are not the answer to our current climate change problems and energy needs. Using food for fuel is a problem for many reasons. First, biofuels don’t slow climate change - they may, in fact, accelerate it. The journal Science published a study that calculated biofuel production may release “between 17 and 420 times more carbon dioxide than… fossil fuel” (Dyer, 11). Second, biofuel production drives up the cost of food. Between 2006 and 2007, “food costs world wide rose by 23 percent”, something that can be linked directly with conversion of land from food to fuel production (Dyer, 78).
There are basically two types of citations, continued. The second:
2. A blocked citation: This is for longer citations and looks differently, as if you cut and pasted part of your source into your text. To do this, do the following:
a. The citation should be single spaced and indented.
b. Don’t set it off with quote marks.
c. Place the author and page number at the end of the citation.
d. To leave out text, use the ellipsis.


We are facing a food shortage crisis, plain and simple. The World Food Program has stated it needs upwards of 700 million dollars this year to help feed the world’s poor, up 200 million from what they needed last year to feed the same number of people.

Last year it became clear that the era of
cheap food was over. Food costs world-wide
rose by 23 percent between 2006 and 2007.
This year, what is becoming clear is the impact
of this change on ordinary people’s lives (Dyer, 11).

What might not be clear is the cause: biofuels.
For the capstone, you must…
• Use each of these techniques at least once.
• Cite from a source in each essay.