Works Cited, References, and Bibliographies with Nancy Anthony

Works Cited 101:

Nancy Anthony gave a very informative talk on citations, references and bibliographies.  Nancy's web site is: sites.google.com/site/workscitedmsla/ . 

Highlights of her presentation:

Familiar problems we have encountered:

• "Will you show my students how to write a bibliography?"
• Bibliography is a list of sources
• Citations is the list of sources that were used.
• Questions to ask:
• At what stage is this request
  
• Do students understand parts of a book
  
• What kind of report is this going to be?
• Citing images: very long url - not useful
  
• Citations as a list of urls is not OK
  
• Yahoo, google and etc. not citations
  
• Copy and paste ready made citations?  Ready-made citations are not totally reliable Like the ones on the databases or United Streaming Video
  

Students need to understand the parts to a citation so that they can create it.

Other problems:

• What should be cited"?
• Formal versus informal reports and projects demand different citation styles?
• Which format? MLA,  APA, Turabian
• K-5 expectations?
• Unsuitable sources
• How do you cite primary source that is embedded into a web site

**NoodleBib now supports Chicago/Turabian style citations

There is plenty of guidance online. Some of the best:

 College-level Guides and Tutorials:

• Online!
• Dianehacker.com
• Carleton College
• Dartmouth Guide
• Owl at Purdue

Research Guides:

• Joyce Valenza's
  
• Cambridge Rindge and Latin
  
• Kentucky Virgual Library
  
• A Research Guide
  
• Elementary School Lesson
  

Citations Tools: Online citation Generators allow students to generate in APA, ALA, Turabian

• Bibme
• Landmark's Citation Machine
• Noodle Tools 
• EasyBib

Noodle Tools will let you put in the isbn or url and they will give you the citation.  but, not always 100% correctly, so beware!

Students still need to understand what the parts of the citation are, or they will not be correct.

Word 2007 gives you the capibility to do the APA and MLA citations, although it is been noted as being not correct anymore.

So, what can we do to make this all easier? Some ideas:

Solutions Guided by Concepts:

• Consistency
  
• Acknowledgement- give credit where credit is due
• Decide purpose and audience of student work
• Sound instructional design is essential- design the project so that plagiarism is not easy
• Student responsibility
• Attention to detail
• Following directions

Create assignments that lend themselves to fewer problems-

• Problem: What to Cite when the knowledge can be copied and pasted?
  
• Solution: Ban those Penguin Reports! Avoid Regurgitation!
  

Skills that should be taught to students to help stop plagiarism:

• Paraphrasing and summarizing
• Quotations including author's name in sentence (According to Smith, "the... .")
• Teach students to identify common knowledge. They may need to practice this.
• teach students constitutes plagiarism

A word about Copyright in the Digital Age: People are taking content (music) from everywhere and creating.  Articles about how to handle this:

• Larry Lessig at Ted.com: UGC (User Generated Content)
• Creative Commons: the grand plan- all of the information you need without barriers, etc(?)
• Doug Johnson SLJ article
• Valenza's Guidelines

Practice with students identifying common knowledge: it may be different depending what you are studying

Working Citations or Source Cards: Create a form for the students to fill out during the initial part of research so that they will have the information they need to created the citation.

• Guides from Needham High School
• Sample guide for print materials and online resources
• Keep track of sources as you go

Use in-text citations:

• Refers reader to the Works Cited list
  
• The names of the author and page numbers are included
  
• Use of "Signal Phrases", taken for Diane Hacker's site, which weaves the references into the writing 

Adopt a Formal and a non-formal style for citations to be used for different assignments:

Use the Formal format for:

• term paper
• position paper
• poster session

Use the informal format for:

• Posters
• PowerPoints

Role of the Library Teacher includes the following:

• Provide direct instruction
  
• Provide rubrics and assessment
• Correct them!

Students Reflection: Questions the students should ask themselves:

• Have I gathered enough information?
• Is this the right balance of print and non-print for my research?
• Did I make full use of the resources available?
• Is currency important and if so, does my research reflect that?

**Lastly, MLA Guidelines will be changing.  A new edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers will be coming out this spring.