Reference notes (sometimes called citations or footnotes) serve 3 purposes.
To show where you found your information.
To document facts, statistics, results of experiments, opinions, and others’ conclusions.
To avoid plagiarism (theft of ideas, word by word copying, or paraphrasing text without indicating the source.)
Footnotes - insert notes at the bottom of each page
This box illustrates the proper way to use footnotes. Place a number after material which is not original to indicate the source of your information. Place the numbers above the text, like this.1 There may be several sections in your text where you need to show your sources, so you simply continue to number 1, 2, 3, etc. You simply place the numeral “2” at the end of the next section of material you are referencing, like this.2 In some cases, your next reference might refer to the same sources as the one before it.3 In that case only, you use a Latin word, ibid., which means “the same.”
1. Author, Title. City of Publication: Publisher, Date, Page number.
2. Fraser, Sir James George. The Golden Bough. New York: Macmillian, 1922. p. 147.
3. Ibid., p. 235.
End Notes - insert notes at the end of the paper
Follows the same form as footnotes but the list appears at the end of the paper.
Parenthetical Notes - embed notes in the text, inside parentheses
In this case, you insert brief reference material immediately following each item, like this: (Author’s last name, page number, date.) You don’t need to number the sources, just drop in each individual reference. In your bibliography or list of works cited, you then give the full informa-tion about title, city of publication, and date. Here in the parenthetical notes, you simply insert (in parentheses) author’s last name, page number, and date.
