SA 4016 - Senior Seminar (Shelly)

Many of you have already figured out what you want to investigate, either from your job or another class you took.  But, for those of you who are still looking, check out the following....

• Aquatic Dead Zones: We've left them with no room to breathe
• Working K9 to 5  (the role of service dogs in society)
• Sea Lions in Captivity: "Something to Bark About"
• Oil Spill in the Gulf and its Effects on Animals
• Saving the Black-Footed Ferret from Extinction
• Illegal Importation of Birds

If you have answered "yes" to these five questions you have probably located a scientific article.

Research articles are also often known as scientific or peer-reviewed articles. If the article is NOT written by the person or group who did the research, it is NOT a peer-reviewed or scientific article. Research articles are important for knowing what new discoveries have been made. This is why it is important to use recent articles, since they will be the first things published on a new scientific development. 

Here's a quick overview of how to identify these journal articles:

• written by the scientist(s) who actually did the research
• follows a specific format 
  • abstract
  • introduction
  • materials & methods
  • results
  • conclusions
  • references 
• assumes reader already knows background information about the topic has been evaluated by experts
• Tip:  Look for a statement about when the article was accepted for publication. Most peer-reviewed articles will include one.

Depending on your topic, one of these databases might be tailored to your research needs.

If a book or article you want is not available, use Interlibrary Loan (ILL). The Library can order books and articles from other libraries. This process takes few days but is completely free for DelVal students, faculty, and staff.

Before you submit an ILL, check Google Scholar or Summon to see if we have immediate access or if it is freely available online.

The contents of this page are borrowed in part from Purdue's Online Writing Lab and UNC's Writing Center.

Your abstract should summarize the key points of your research paper by touching briefly on the following elements:

1. Reason for Writing -- Why is the topic important?  Why would someone want to read your paper?
2. Problem -- What issue are you trying to solve? What is your main argument, thesis, or claim?
3. Methodology -- How did you conduct your research?  What types of data and evidence did you include?
4. Results -- What did you discover?
5. Implications -- What are your conclusions and suggestions for the future?

Reread your finished paper and look specifically for the elements included in this list.  Then sit on your paper (or put it away) and write a rough draft of your abstract.  Do not simply copy and paste key sentences from your paper, and do not mention any information that you didn't include in your paper!  When you're ready to revise your rough draft, check for organization, coherence, and content.

Most informative abstracts are generally 200-300 words and one paragraph in length.

A good abstract...

• offers a concise, coherent, and complete summary of your paper in one well-written paragraph
• uses an introduction/body/conclusion structure that discusses the parts of your paper (purpose, findings, conclusions, recommendations)
• discusses the parts of your paper in chronological order
• includes only the information that you address in your paper (no extraneous details)
• appeals to a wide audience (even those readers who may not be experts on your topic)

To view examples of abstracts, do a search in any database, or take a look at the abstracts attached to the studies that you found for your paper! Or click the document below...

RefWorks is a new way to collect, manage, and organize research.  You can read, annotate, organize, and cite your research as well as collaborate by sharing collections.

From simple bibliographies to papers formatted with in-text citations or footnotes, RefWorks handles it all. ​To learn more about RefWorks, use our RefWorks research guide.

Changes with the 18th edition are marked in goldenrod in the examples. Please confirm which edition your professor is using.

Chicago Author-Date style may also be referred to as:

• Author-Date System/Style
• Parenthetical
• Chicago Scientific

These are all the same thing!

Paraphrasing
When the author's name appears in the sentence, it does not need to be repeated in the citation.

Example:
Recent literature has examined long-run price drifts following initial public offerings and other factors (Ritter 1991). Fisher (2009) reaches more or less the same conclusion.

Quotations

Example:
Several studies have shown that "F. oxysporum isolates collected as nonpathogenic or pathogenic to other hosts that have very similar or identical elongation factor 1α and mitochondrial small subunit genotypes as banana pathogens were shown to cause little or no disease on banana" (O'Donnell 1998, 2044).

More than one author 
(Smith and Johnson 1998, 14) 
(Smith, Johnson, and White 2001, 42)

More than three authors
(Smith et al. 1998, 203)

No author
(Plagiarism and You 2002, 142) 

Last name, first name. Year. "Article Title." Journal volume (issue, if available): pages. URL or DOI. 

Example:
Novak, William J. 2008. "The Myth of the 'Weak' American State." American Historical Review 113:752-72. doi:10.1086/ahr.113.3.752.

In-text citation
(Novak 2008, 21)

Paraphrasing
(Novak 2008)

Journal article with multiple authors
Journal articles often list many authors, especially in the sciences. For works by two authors, list both in the reference list and the text . For three or more authors, list up to six in the reference list; for more than six authors, list the first three, followed by “et al.” (“and others”). In the text, list only the first, followed by “et al.”

Last name, first name, and First name Last name. Year. "Article Title." Journal volume (issue, if available): pages. URL, if no DOI available. 

Example:
Choi, Stephen J., and G. Mitu Gulati. 2008. "Bias in Judicial Citations: A Window into the Behavior of Judges?" Journal of Legal Studies 37 (1): 87-129. doi:10.1086/588263.

In-text citation
(Novak 2008, 21)

Paraphrasing
(Novak 2008)

Note that a place of publication is no longer required in book citations

Last name, First name. Year. Title. Publisher's name.

Example:
Pollan, Michael. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin.

In-text citation
(Pollan 2006, 117-18)

Paraphrasing
(Pollan 2006)

Books with 2-3 authors
Last name, First name, and First name Last name. Year. Title. Publisher's name.

Example:
Heatherton, Joyce, James Fitzgilroy, and Jackson Hsu. 2008. Meteors and Mudslides: A Trip through the Earth. Knopf. 

In-text citation
(Heatherton et al. 2008, 271)

Paraphrasing
(Heatherton et al. 2008)

Books with more than 3 authors
Include all authors, regardless of number, in the References List. 

Last name, First name, First name Last name, and First name Last name. Year. Title. Publisher's name.

Example:

Caniglia, B., Frank, B., Knott, J. J. L., Sagendorf, K. S., & Wilkerson, E. A. 2019. Regenerative urban development, climate change and the common good. Taylor & Francis Group.

In-text citation
(Caniglia et al. 2019, 76)

Paraphrasing
(Caniglia et al. 2019)

Chapter in an Edited Book

The page range for a chapter in a book is no longer required in reference list entries. In the text, cite specific pages as applicable.

Last name, First name of chapter author. Year. Chapter Title. In Book Title, edited by Editor. Publisher's name.

Example:

Doyle, Kathleen. 2023. “The Queen Mary Psalter.” In The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, edited by P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin. University of Chicago Press.

In-text citation
(Doyle 2023, 64)

Paraphrasing
(Doyle 2023)

Marti, C. D. (1992) Barn Owl. The Birds of North America (A. Poole, Ed.) Ithaca: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; Retrieved from The Birds of North America: https://birdsna.org.

In-text citation
(Marti 1992)

Last name, first name, First name Last name, and First name Last name. Year. Title. Report submitted to Department on date.

Example:
McKenna-Foster, Andrew, Lou Perrotti, and Elizabeth Sorrows. 2015. American Burying Beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) Survey on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. Report submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on October 22, 2015.

In-text citation
(McKenna-Foster et al., 2008, 21)

Paraphrasing
(McKenna-Foster et al. 2008)

If there is no title, include a description of the image instead. 

Artist or creator. Year. "Title." Digital image. Website title. Access date, if no publication date available. URL.

Example:
Guinness World Records. "Cassowary on Beach." 2019. Digital image. Guinness World Records. Accessed March 4, 2020. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/Images/cassowary-header-2_tcm25-568945.jpg.

In-text citation
(Guinness World Records 2019)

Citations in predominantly legal works generally follow one of two guides: (1) The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation; or (2) the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation. Chicago recommends using one of these systems for citing legal and public documents.

14.276 Cases or court decisions
"Full case names in citations including the abbreviation v., are set in roman in notes; short forms in subsequent citations are italicized (as are full case names mentioned in textual sentences). Full citations include volume number, abbreviated name of the reporter(s), the ordinal series number of the reporter (if applicable), the abbreviated name of the court (if not indicated by the reporter) and the date together in parentheses, and other relevant information. A single page number designates the opening page of a decision; an additional number designates an actual page cited. In a shorted citation, at is used to cite a particular page; absence of at implies reference to the decision as a whole."

Example:

Personal communications, including email and text messages and direct messages sent through social media, are usually cited in the text only; they are rarely included in a reference list.

Example:

(Sam Gomez, Facebook message to author, August 1, 2017)

In-text citation
(Gomez 2017)

It is usually sufficient to cite newspaper and magazine articles entirely within the text. If, for some reason, a reference list entry is needed, the year of publication is separated from the month and day. 

Last name, first name. Year. "Title." Newspaper, Month day, pages if available. URL if available. 

Example:

Carey, Benedict. 2008. "For the Brain, Remembering is like Reliving." New York Times, September 4. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/science/05brain.html. 

In-text citation
(Carey 2008)
(Mead 2023, 21)

Paraphrasing
(Carey 2008)
(Mead 2023)

Publisher's location is no longer required.

If no author is available, begin citation with title.

Last name, First name if available. Year. Title. Publisher's name.

Example:

Lifestyles in Retirement, 1996. TIAA-CREF. 

In-text citation
(Lifestyles in Retirement 1996, 21)

Paraphrasing
(Lifestyles in Retirement 1996)

If there is a photographer or illustrator use his or her name in place of the author. If there is a caption, use the caption in place of the title of an article, or add the caption title in quotation marks with proper capitalization. Add a page number where the image is found.

Last name, first name. Year. "Article Title." Journal volume (issue, if available): page, figure or table name. URL

Example:

Talbot, David. 2007. "Saving Holland." Technology Review 110, no. 4: 52, figure 3.

In-text

When citing (not reprinting) an illustration from a book, article or other sources, cite the source first, then provide the page number where the illustration is located in text citation, preceding the figure number, with a comma between them. When citing illustrations, the abbreviation fig. may be used for figure, but table, map, plate, and other illustration forms are spelled out.

Example:

... (Anderson 2018, fig. 8.1)...

(Smith 2019, 123, fig. 3)

Reprinting

If you are including a figure or table in your paper, not just referring to it, it requires a credit line. A credit line usually appears at the end of a caption of a figure, or in a source note of a table. Figures and tables must be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc)  in the order in which they appear within the text, i.e. the first figure is labeled "Figure 1", the second "Figure 2", and so on. 

Refer to each figure or table in text by their number, e.g. figure 1, table 4, etc.

If you are WRITING FOR PUBLICATION (for a journal, conference paper, thesis, website, etc) you must obtain written permission from the copyright owner to include the figure or table in your work, and state the permission in the source citation as 'Reprinted with permission from ...' While students don't usually require publisher permission to include figures or tables in assignments, you should still include the credit line with copyright statement.

If the work being credited is listed in the reference list, only a shortened form needs appear in the credit line.

Example:

Figure or table number. Figure or table name. Reprinted from Author (Year, page).

Figure 1. Surgical mask (left) and N95 mask (right). Reprinted from Doyle and McCutcheon (2015, 24).

Titles of unpublished works appear in quotation marks, not italics. 

Last name, First name. Year. "Title." Thesis type, Academic institution. Database name, if available. URL, if available.

Example:

Blajer de la Garza, Yuna. 2019. “A House Is Not a Home: Citizenship and Belonging in Contemporary Democracies.” PhD diss., University of Chicago. ProQuest (13865986).

In-text citation
(Blajer de la Garza 2019, 66–67)

Paraphrasing
(Blajer de la Garza 2019)

Organization or author name. Year. "Webpage title." Owner of webpage. Access date, if last modified date is not available. URL. 

Examples:

Google. 2023. “Privacy Policy.” Privacy & Terms. Effective November 15. https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Wikimedia Foundation. 2023. “Wikipedia: Manual of Style.” Last modified December 19, at 21:54 (UTC). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style.

In-text citation
(Google 2023)
(Wikimedia Foundation 2022)

Contact the Library at library@delval.edu to request a new example and citation help!

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