Skip to Main Content

Wayland High School Library: Citation Guide

Official WHS Library Website! Please click on tabs below to see more:

CITING SOURCES

CITATIONS: Citing tells your reader where you found your information. Citing allows your reader to learn more, beginning with your sources. Citing gives credit to the people whose words or ideas you are using. Citing protects you from plagiarizing.

All resources you use must be cited, including creative commons resources 

Citations should include: 

  1. Author(s)
  2. Title of source (book, article, webpage)
  3. Title of container ("The 8th edition of the MLA handbook introduced what are referred to as 'containers,' which are the larger wholes in which the source is located. For example, if you want to cite a poem that is listed in a collection of poems, the individual poem is the source, while the larger collection is the container" - Purdue Owl) 
  4. Other contributors
  5. Version (if applicable)
  6. Number (if applicable)
  7. Publisher (if applicable)
  8. Publication date (if known - many times a webpage does not have a publication date) 
  9. Location (URL, if found online) 

Below you will find tools to aid and guide you in completing your assignments and properly citing your sources. You are always welcome to come to the library or send us an email to get help with citing sources, accessing, finding, and evaluating sources, choosing the correct database, and conducting research! 

NoodleTools

NoodleTools is an online citation generator, use it to organize your information, build accurate citations, archive source material, take notes, outline topics, and prepare to write. **Sign in with your Wayland email. Need help creating an account? Watch this video.

NoodleTools Help: tutorials on how to use it, NoodleTools Help Desk and NoodleTools Support. 

If Noodletools does not appear to have a form that fits a particular source well (e.g., a primary source found on a website), try this citation maker created by the Oregon School Library System, select "Other" from the source type menu on the right. You can create a more accurate citation, then copy and paste it into Noodletools or alphabetically in your works cited/bibliography.

Purdue Owl

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) houses writing resources and instructional material as a free service. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. 

Information Literacy Crash Course

Information Literacy Lesson with Fault in Our Stars author John Green & his brother Hank Green

MLA In-text Citations

What are Databases and why do you need them?

What are library databases? 

Adapted from Enoch Pratt Free Library

  • Library databases are like mini versions of the internet and provide access to carefully selected information sources. Ex: academic journals, magazines, newspapers. encyclopedias, videos, images, and other resources. 
  • Library databases are set up for you to customize your search in order to get the most relevant results
  • Library databases provide citation information
  • Library databases often contain full-text articles - you can print, save, email an entire article. 
  • There are different kinds of library databases: 

General Topics - Ex: Encyclopedia, Britannica, Gale OneFile

Specific Topics - Ex: Biography In Context, American History, Science Online

Evaluating Sources

Citing Sources

Plagiarism Video

Plagiarism

Avoiding Plagiarism

Remember - It is perfectly acceptable to borrow information or ideas from other sources; but when you do so, you have to let your audience know that’s what you’ve done. 

Any time you borrow someone else’s work (words, images, video, audio) or ideas (info you didn’t know before you saw it, even if it’s paraphrased or re-interpreted), you MUST cite it (let your audience know which bits are borrowed). If you don’t, you are plagiarizing, which is a serious issue. 

Unsure of what is considered plagiarism? Check out the WHS Academic Integrity Policy

Plagiarism SNL

Copyright & Fair Use