B: Documentation of Report Sources 1
Appendix B: Documentation of Report Sources
This appendix offers advice on conforming to the three major citation styles: Chicago Humanities, APA,
and MLA.
APPENDIX OUTLINE
Chicago Humanities Style
In-Text Citation—Chicago Humanities Style
Bibliography—Chicago Humanities Style
APA Style
In-Text Citation—APA Style
List of References—APA Style
MLA Style
In-Text Citation—MLA Style
List of Works Cited—MLA Style
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B: Documentation of Report Sources 2
LECTURE NOTES
Providing information about your sources
If your employer uses a particular style for documentation, adopt and use that style.
Whatever style you use, be consistent.
All styles break bibliographic information into various parts:
• Information about the author (name)
Chicago Humanities Style
The Chicago Manual of Style recommends two types of documentation systems:
Documentary-note (or humanities) system
Author-date system
• Gives the author’s last name and the publication date in the text itself (usually enclosed in
In-Text Citation—Chicago Humanities Style
Chicago’s humanities system relies on superscripts (arabic numerals placed just above the line of type
at the end of the reference).
Note preferences differ:
• Some readers prefer footnotes so that they can simply glance at the bottom of the page for
B: Documentation of Report Sources 3
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• Writers often prefer endnotes so that they don’t have to plan for how much space the notes will
take away from the end of the page.
• Both footnotes and endnotes are handled automatically by today’s word processing software.
• A good compromise is to use footnotes for content notes and endnotes for source notes.
Content notes serve several purposes:
• To supplement the text with asides about a particular issue or event
• To provide a cross-reference to another section of the report
• To direct readers to a related source
Source notes are used to document
Bibliography—Chicago Humanities Style
Because Chicago’s humanities system gives all necessary bibliographic information in the notes, a
bibliography is optional.
When using Chicago style, the bibliography may be titled
• Bibliography
• Reference List
Since the reference list may also serve as a reading list, you might want to
To prepare a bibliography using Chicago style, follow these major conventions:
For all entries
• Exclude any page numbers already cited in source notes, except for journals, periodicals,
newspapers, and book chapter page ranges.
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• Enclose article titles in quotation marks—capitalizing the first word, the last word, and all other
important words.
APA Style
The American Psychological Association (APA) recommends the author-date system, which is popular in
physical, natural, and social sciences.
In-Text Citation—APA Style
To use the APA’s author-date system
List of References—APA Style
APA style recommends that the reference list include only those works that are actually cited in the
report.
To prepare a list of references using APA style, follow these major conventions for all entries
• Format entries as hanging indents.
For journal articles
Include personal communications only in text, not in reference lists.
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For electronic references
• Include author, publication date, article title, publication name, volume, date of retrieval, and
source.
MLA Style
The Modern Language Association of America (MLA) style is used widely in the humanities, especially
for language and literature.
In-Text Citation—MLA Style
List of Works Cited—MLA Style
Prepare the list of works cited first so that you know what to include in the parenthetical citation:
To prepare a list of works cited using MLA style, follow these major conventions for all entries:
• Format each one as a hanging indent.
• Arrange the information in each entry as follows: author name, title information, publication
For journal articles:
• Include volume and issue numbers.
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