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Comm. - Journalism - Media

Library Services--Journalism and Media--COMM 1130 / 1500

Attribution or Citations

I was consulting with Jared who was learning about using sources for a research paper in his COMM 1500, Media & Society class at SLCC.   

He said to me: "If I understand a topic and write about it in my own words, then why do I have to provide a nitpicky reference?"  I told him:

“Whenever you use another person’s ideas, information, or their specific words, you should give credit.”  I said that if we do not cite our sources, it is considered plagiarism, a serious offense. It is kind of like stealing another person's thoughts and ideas, and claiming them for ourselves.  

Later on he told me: "At first, citing sources was irritating. But the more I did it, the more it made sense. I realized that using citations actually helped my paper be more trustworthy. When I included evidence from experts and gave its source, my arguments were stronger. It is actually worth the extra time it takes to include them."  I agreed with this!

Because information has value, it is important to acknowledge it, when it is not from our own work. Authors should be paid for their work, and documenting sources is a way to make it clear who did what, and it is also, by the way, how we can be part of a scholarly conversation on a topic.

What is Plagiarism?  

The SLCC Student Code of Conduct defines it as "Presenting within one’s own work the ideas, representations, or words of another person without customary and proper acknowledgment of that person’s authorship ...."  Penalties could include failing a class, or having to redo a paper.  See: 

The APA Style of documentation is used by the Communication discipline in higher education.

  • A helpful website about guidelines for using APA is: APA STYLE GUIDELINES and USAGE (American Psychological Association).
  • Library Databases also provide the APA style references (and other styles) for your accessed items. See "Cite."  Be sure to edit these for font size or spacing to match what you are using in your own paper. These will make creating citations a breeze!
  • An official book on APA Style is also available in each of the physical library locations, to use for any of your sources not obtained from our databases or to get formatting guidelines. The book cover looks like this image to the right:

Decorative Cover Art of APA Manual, Volume 7, 2019

Here is an example APA citation for this same book which is without an author for use in a list of Works Cited:     

   American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association 2020:

                      the official guide to APA style (7th ed.). American Psychological Association.

Here is another example of an APA citation for an academic journal article, a source that was obtained online:

   He, D., Zhao, P., & Cindy Sing, B. N. (2025). Engaging social media users with corporate social responsibility messages:

                   An integrated theoretical approach in the automotive industry during social media era. PLoSOne, 20(6)

                   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322481  

 

Places for more help using APA Citations: