For reasons that are unclear to me, many students seem completely uncertain as to how to cite sources. I think this is because their teachers have insisted on particular formats. My son tells me that one of his college professors spent a whole hour teaching the class how to do APA format referencing. Googling APA citations, I see he is not alone (example). I have to say I feel like citation format is a unimportant problem in academia. The key principle is to make sure the source is clear. How that is done I leave up to students.

For SC200 the blog, live links can be used to direct the reader to the source, and I think that makes things readable, accessible and looks much better. But if traditionalists want to give sources at the end, fine with me. We don’t care how it is done. But we do care deeply that it IS done. Unless something is widely understood general knowledge, citations MUST be given or it is theft (you have used the ideas/data/concepts developed by someone else and passed them off as your own).

So here’s some examples of ways to do it:

1.  As Read and colleagues (2001) pointed out, it does not always make sense to complete a course of antibiotics even after you feel better, despite what the doctor says. This is because…
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   end of post:
   Read, A.F., Day, T., & Huijben, S. (2011) The evolution of drug resistance and the curious orthodoxy of aggressive chemotherapy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA. 108: 10871-10877.
2.  The doctors advice to complete a course of antibiotics even after you feel better does not always make sense (Read et al. 2011). This is because,,,,,,
   end of post:
   Read, A.F., Day, T., & Huijben, S. (2011) The evolution of drug resistance and the curious orthodoxy of aggressive chemotherapy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA. 108: 10871-10877.
3.  Andrew Read and colleagues have argued that the doctors advice to complete a course of antibiotics even after you feel better does not always make sense.
4.  ….The doctors advice to complete a course of antibiotics even after you feel better does not always make sense. This is because…

SC200 2016 Students: (1) If you want to do it some other way, no problems, but it must be clear what the source is. If you are worried about whether your way works, email SC200@psu.edu and ask. (2). Note that I am assuming here that you have put things in your own words. If you are using someone else’s words, you need to email SC200@psu.edu and ask permission to use them and if that is granted, we will talk about the use of quote marks etc. That is to avoid plagiarism — see p. 9 of the 2016 syllabus.