University of Warwick

Centre for Applied Linguistics – Masters Courses

Citation examples
Citation, or 'In‐text referencing' (what you write IN your essay)

A citation is the mention in your essay of any works (e.g. articles, books or websites) that you
have read and used directly or indirectly in your own piece of writing. You must do this, since
not acknowledging other people’s work that you have used is plagiarism. See below for
examples of how to acknowledge and refer to other people’s work.
The style of referencing used on the UG and Masters degrees in CAL and exemplified on this
page is APA style. Some links are provided below to the APA style blog, which can also be
searched for answers to particular questions.

A. Long quotations

 Quotations of over 40 words

 Use indentation (making the margin further to the right than your main text)
 Do not use any quotation marks (“....”)
 Give source, date, and page number(s) in parentheses at the end of the
quotation, after the full stop (nb. this is the only situation in which a
parenthetical citation can follow a full stop: Cf. the second example in B and
the example in C).

Example:

Little highlights this engagement, along with other key factors, in his definition of
autonomy:
Essentially, autonomy is a capacity — for detachment, critical reflection, decision-
making, and independent action. It presupposes, but also entails, that the learner will
develop a particular kind of psychological relation to the process and content of his
learning. (Little, 1991, p.4)

B. Short quotations

 Written as part of the narrative essay text without changing the formatting of the
text
 Use double quotation marks (“....”)
 Mention source either 1. before or 2. after the quotation

CAL APA Referencing Guidelines

Examples:

Little (1994, p.435) makes a similar point when he states that "learner autonomy is the
product of interdependence rather than independence". Ryan (1991, p.227), in a similar
vein, contends that learner autonomy is synonymous with "autonomous interdependence".
Bar-On coined the term emotional quotient for his measure and defined emotional
intelligence as "an array of non-cognitive capabilities, competencies, and skills that influence
one’s ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures" (Bar-On,
1997, p.16).

C. Allowable modifications to the original

 If the original contains a spelling, grammar or factual mistake, you must copy it exactly
but you may write [sic] (meaning ‘as in the original’) in square brackets immediately
after the awkward word or phrase to show that this mistake is not your own.
 If you find that some part of the original is superfluous to the point you wish to make,
you may omit it, showing the gap with three dots [...].
 Occasionally, it is necessary to add a word to make the referencing of the original clear.
In this case you put the added word in square brackets [ ]. It is important to retain the
meaning of the original when adding or omitting words.

Example:

Methods of collecting naturally occurring data “allow investigation of phenomena in their

natural settings; provide data which is [sic] an 'enactment' of social behaviour in its own
social setting, rather than a 'recounting' of it generated specifically for the research study;
[and] are of particular value where behaviours and interactions need to be understood in
'real world' contexts” (Ritchie, 2003, p.34).

D. Reporting, paraphrasing and summarising

 All ideas or facts that have an identifiable source must have that source
acknowledged. This is true whether you are paraphrasing (rewriting in your own
words but keeping all the ideas of the original) or whether you are summarising
(giving only a shortened version in your own words).

Example:

Dörnyei (2001, p.6) identifies motivation as the generic principle that leads to independent
action. Similarly, motivation and autonomy are seen as interwoven with both intrinsic and
extrinsic factors playing a significant role (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Oxbrow, 2000). Scharle and
Szabo (2000, p.7) note that rewards and punishments (extrinsic factors) can also stimulate
learning but at the same time they increase the dependence of the learners.

CAL APA Referencing Guidelines

 E. How to cite a source that you found in another source.

 If the quoted or paraphrased material comes from another source, you must show this
by quoting both the author of the quoted or paraphrased material and the author and
date of the book/article that it came from, which is known as the secondary source. You
also need to use the phrase 'as cited in'

(see example / alternative example below).

Example:

There are many ways that advertisements are useful for practising translation: “For
translation studies, the translation of advertisements provides us with a microcosm of
almost all the prosodic, pragmatic, syntactic, textual, semiotic and even ludic difficulties to
be encountered in translating” (Smith & Klein-Braley as cited in Snell-Hornby 1999, p.97).
Alternatively:
According to Smith and Klein-Braley, “For translation studies, the translation of
advertisements provides us with a microcosm of almost all the prosodic, pragmatic,
syntactic, textual, semiotic and even ludic difficulties to be encountered in translating” (as
cited in Snell-Hornby 1999, p.97).
NB. ONLY the secondary source (the one you actually had access to, and whose date and page
number you provide) should be included in the References list.

F. Referencing sources from the Internet

 Mention the author’s surname (or the person or organisation responsible for the site)
and the date of publication. If there is no date, use (n.d.), which means ‘no date’.

G. Quoting directly or paraphrasing from an Internet source

 Reference the web page just as you would a paper-based source.

Examples:

Quoting directly

Now that women in China have a higher status in society, and can earn their own living,
interest in marriage (which traditionally entails a life of service to the husband) seems to
have declined. Recent research confirms this: “A survey in Beijing indicates that 50.2% of
those women with a monthly salary of 5,000--15,000 yuan remain single” (China Daily,
2003).

CAL APA Referencing Guidelines

 Paraphrasing
Now that women in China have a higher status in society, and can earn their own living,
interest in marriage (which traditionally entails a life of service to the husband) seems to
have declined. It has been found that just over half of the women with a good monthly salary
in Beijing choose not to get married (China Daily, 2003).

H. Quoting directly from a non-English language website:

 provide your own translation of the original text and write [my translation] in
square brackets afterwards.

Example:

“In 1949, the People’s Republic of China built up and so the Chinese government began to
pay more attention to public educational development” [my translation] (CERNET, 2003).

I. Paraphrasing from a non-English languagewebsite

Example:

Education in China was given more attention by the government after 1949 when it was
clear that the Republic had grown substantially (CERNET, 2003).

J. Other points to note

 When a work has more than two authors, name all the authors at the 'first mention', but
for all subsequent occasions that you cite the same source, name only the first author
and write ‘et al.’ to show there are other authors. If there are only two authors, you
must always name them both in the in-text reference.
http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/02/et-al-when-and-how.html

Example:

Halliday et al. (1964) discuss sequencing language items in a syllabus and assert that this is
best done by intuition and experience.

 Use '&' - the abbreviated form of 'and' - for a two-author source when the source
appears in parentheses.

NB. On a related point, in APA style, the same applies for other abbreviations such as
'e.g.' and 'i.e.' as follows: In the main sentence, only use the long forms 'for example'
and 'that is' but in parentheses, use their abbreviations e.g. and i.e. The use of ‘et al.’
in a main-sentence citation is an exception to this rule.

CAL APA Referencing Guidelines

 Example:

Similarly, motivation and autonomy are seen as interwoven: that is, with both intrinsic and
extrinsic factors playing a significant role (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Oxbrow, 2000). Scharle and
Szabo (2000, p.7) note that rewards and punishments (i.e., extrinsic factors) can also
stimulate learning but at the same time they increase the dependence of the learners.

 If referring to two or more publications, list these chronologically rather than

alphabetically.

Example:

(Shulman, 1987; Borg, 2006)

 If you cite from a personal communication you had with someone (e.g. email), you
should mention the name of the person(s) being cited and the date when that
communication took place. NB. Anything cited as a personal communication does not
need to be included in the References list.
http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/10/what-belongs-in-the-reference-list.html

Example: (H. S. Sanchez, personal communication, July 7, 2010)

H. Latin abbreviations (see link for examples of usage)

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/05/its-all-latin-to-me.html

 i.e. -­­ short for id est - meaning 'that is'

 e.g. - short for exemplii gratia - meaning 'for example'
 etc. - short for et cetera - meaning 'and so on'
 et al. - short for et alii - meaning ‘and others’
cf. - is short for the Latin imperative confer, which means that you, the writer, are directing
the reader to 'compare' - and is used to refer your reader to a source with a supportive but
different perspective. (For a disjunctive perspective [not supportive] we might use 'but cf. ...')

A point to note is that like etc. (but unlike i.e. and e.g.) cf. is an abbreviation of a single
word and so does not take the interior full stop: that is, cf. not c.f.
In APA, commonly used Latin abbreviations, such as these above, are not italicised.
APA does not use ibid.

CAL APA Referencing Guidelines