Academic study begins by examining the work of scholars that have come before us. While it is essential that your work is written in your own words, it is equally important that proper credit is given to the authors we have studied and learned from. We do this by citing our sources, and quoting or paraphrasing the original writers when appropriate.
A citation credits the source of your information. Cite the sources of your information according to the rules of your professor's preferred style guide (MLA, APA, etc.). Even if your work is wholly written in your own voice, you need to cite the source of your information to give credit to the original scholars and to show the thoroughness of your research. When another author's words or ideas are presented in your work, they need to be quoted or paraphrased.
Example:
Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarizing at Purdue OWL
Quoting and Paraphrasing at The University of Wisconsin
Quoting Materials at Plagiarism.org
In Physics, cite according to the style for a particular journal. APS provides journal-specific guidelines for authors. In general, refer to the style guide for Physical Review Letters.
Some examples of this style are:
A. B. Last Name, Journal Title Abbreviation Vol, Issue (Year).
J. M. Smith, Phys. Rev. B 26, 1 (1982).
A. B. Last Name, Book Title (Publisher, City, Year), Vol, pages.
J.M. Smith, Molecular Dynamics (Academic, New York, 1980), Vol. 2, p. 20.
A. B. Last Name, in Book Title, edited by C. Last Name (Publisher, City, Year).
J. M. Smith in Molecular Dynamics, edited by C. Brown (Academic, New York, 1980).
A. B. Last Name, in Proceedings Title, edited by C. Last Name (Publisher, City, Year) pages.
J. M. Smith, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Low Temperature Physics, edited by C. Brown (University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1958), p. 201.
Zotero is a free, open-source program that can be downloaded as a browser extension for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, and as a standalone program that works with Windows, Mac, or Linux systems. For most databases and websites, citation information can be saved with just a few clicks. You can also download an extension for Microsoft Word, that will allow you to drag records in Zotero into your word document to instantly create citations in formats like MLA and APA.
Zotero is already installed on all the computers in the CSUDH library.