ENGL 214 Unit 1b - T171

Unit 1b
Finding and documenting sources
FINDING SOURCES ............................................................... 2

Primary research ............................................................... 2
Secondary research ............................................................... 4
The Library ............................................................... 5
Print sources ................................................... 5
Electronic sources ....................................... 9
The Internet ............................................................... 14
DOCUMENTING SOURCES ................................................... 18

References .......................................................................... 18
Print sources .............................................................. 18
Electronic sources .................................................. 20
URLs and DOIs ...................................... 21
Son of Citation Machine ...................................... 23
In-text citations .............................................................. 24
One or two authors .................................................. 24
Multiple authors .................................................. 27
Personal communication ...................................... 27
Academic & Professional Communication T171 & 172 2
The 214 Major Report:

1b Finding & documenting sources
Finding sources
You must use at least six sources to write your major report. Before you begin, you have
to know what restrictions, if any, your teacher places on the sources you can use. For
example, he may expect sources to be fairly new (published within, say, the last 2 or 3
years); he may expect sources to adhere to a minimum and maximum length (e.g.
between one and ten pages); he may require every source to have full bibliographical
information such as an author, a title and a date of publication; he may expect you to use
only reputable websites and read online sources whose authors have a relevant
background in the field; he may expect you to use a variety of source types—both print
and non-print—such as books, journals, and specialist magazines. When you know what
the rules are, you can start your research.
There are two basic ways to acquire your sources: primary research and secondary
research.
PRIMARY RESEARCH SECONDARY RESEARCH

Interviews Library
Correspondence SmartSearch engine
Surveys Databases
Site visits Print collection
Internet
Primary research
Primary research involves work done ‘in the field’ to discover your own original
information. Most primary research methods can be very time-consuming, requiring a lot
of preparatory work and a comparable amount of time spent compiling and analyzing the
results. If you feel your report will benefit from primary research, you should inform your
teacher as soon as possible so he can help you with the necessary preparation.
The following summarizes some points to consider before starting primary research.
Interviews
Interviews can be conducted face to face or over the

telephone. Valuable information can be obtained by
interviewing an expert in the field of your topic, who
could be an instructor or adviser in your major or a
professional in the workplace. The first step is to decide
what specific information your report lacks,
information that cannot be obtained through secondary
research in the Library or on the Internet.
You must then carefully compose the questions that you want to ask the expert. A series
of simple Yes/No questions may not yield the information you need so devise some open-
ended questions that will allow the interviewee to speak at some length in his own way.
Consider also how much time you can reasonably ask of someone who is essentially
doing you a favour.
You must also think about how best to record the information you receive: Can you rely
solely on your memory? Are you quick enough to take notes? Will the interviewee allow
you to record the interview? When these questions have been settled, you are ready to
politely request an interview at a mutually convenient time and place.
The ultimate goal of the interview is a transcript, that is, a verbatim, written record of the
questions asked and the answers given. This will then become one of your report sources
and can be used in the usual way to paraphrase, summarize and quote ideas. Note,
however, that in the APA reference style, you should not write a reference for an
interview though you will still have to include an in-text citation for it. (See in-text
citations for personal communications on pages 27 and 28 below.)
Correspondence
Sometimes a face-to-face or telephone interview is not
possible—for example, it may be difficult to agree on a
mutually convenient time for the interview or the
interviewee may live far away. In this case, the interview
can be conducted by letter or email. The same rules apply
regarding the type of questions to ask and the demands you
can reasonably place on someone’s willingness to help.
Also, in both interviews and correspondence, make a
special effort to be polite: adopt a courteous tone when
making the request and, after you have the information,
send a follow-up letter, email or phone call to thank the
person who supplied you with the information.
An example of such “special request” correspondence can be found in Successful Writing

at Work by Philip Kolin on pages 112 and 113. For special email considerations, see also
pages 78 to 84. Note that the APA style does not require you to write a reference for a
personal communication such as a letter though you will still need to cite it in the text.
Surveys
A survey involves posing your questions to many

people. There are two ways to conduct a survey: you
can ask oral questions of a variety of respondents and
record their answers as they are given, or you can
prepare a questionnaire for distribution, which is
completed and returned to you at the respondents’
convenience.
You first compose a set of questions designed to elicit the information you need to fill the
gaps in your knowledge. The questions can be varied—multiple-choice, yes/no, ranking,
or open-ended—and should not demand too much of the respondent’s time. As you write
the questions, remember that you will eventually be required to collate the results they
yield in a meaningful way, such as in a summary or in a table or chart, so phrase the
questions in such a way that they will yield easily collatable information.
Other decisions you must make include which individuals to ask, how many to ask, and
how to distribute and collect the questionnaires. As with the interview transcript and
email response, the collated information will provide you with a source for your report.
Site visit
Original information can also be obtained by a visit to

a site to record your observations. For example, a CE
student writing a report on campus traffic safety could
station himself at a busy intersection to observe the
behaviour of drivers and to measure the rate of traffic
at certain times during the day and week. A MKT
student researching how shops display their products
could spend some time at a supermarket observing
how successful various displays are in attracting customers. A CHE student writing about
desalination could visit the desalination plant at Al-Aziziyah to watch the process in
action at first hand and perhaps combine his visit with an interview with a technician.
Prior permission is of course required before visiting any site.
All methods of primary research need careful planning before the research is undertaken,
and, once it is completed, they all require a thorough, accurate analysis of the results
obtained. Primary research can supply you with information that cannot be found
anywhere else; however, you should consider it only if it will improve your report and if
you have the time and determination to do it well.
Secondary research
You will obtain most—possibly all—of your sources from secondary research. Unlike
primary research, where the writer interacts with his respondents to obtain original
information, secondary research involves locating sources that already exist, such as
books, journals, magazines, government documents, theses and dissertations, business
reports, and reference works like encyclopedias, manuals, almanacs and dictionaries.
There are two basic methods of secondary research: the Library and the Internet.
The Library
The Library will provide you with access to hundreds of thousands of print and
electronic sources.
Print sources
Although you are likely to find electronic sources to be more useful for your report than
print sources, the KFUPM Library does contain many thousands of hard copies of books
and magazines to help you with your research. In some ways, being able to flick easily
through the pages of a ‘real’ book or magazine is often more convenient than having to
negotiate through the online pages of an e-book. The disadvantage, of course, is that a
real book or magazine will not give you an electronic version to work with and from
which to copy & paste text and illustrations into your report. Instead, you will have to
make photocopies.
On the plateau level, you will find some current periodicals and journals which are likely
to be too new to have been included in the Library’s electronic databases. These include
Time, Newsweek, Windows, Science, Popular Mechanics and Electronics World. There
are also some daily newspapers suitable for business and finance topics, such as the
International Herald Tribune and the Financial Times. On this level you will also find
the Library’s reference collection containing printed encyclopedias such as World Book
and Britannica as well as atlases, manuals, almanacs and dictionaries. In addition, there
are many hundreds of back copies of periodicals on the third floor and hundreds of books
in all majors on the fourth floor. Many of these publications are now very dated but can
still provide you with some useful background information for your report.
Call numbers
The KFUPM Library is an open-stack library which uses

the Library of Congress (LC) classification system. With
this system, a call number consisting of at least three
lines is assigned to every book and to the titles of all
periodicals. There are 21 major subject divisions,
indicated by one, two or (unusually) three letters. You
should by now be familiar with the letters that refer to
your major. See the table below which gives the basic one-
letter classification and the two-letter classification for
selected headings:
A - General Works N - Fine Arts QE - Geology

B- Philosophy-Religion-Psychology P - Linguistics QH - Biology

C- History (Civilization) PC - Romance Languages QK - Botany
D- History (Except America) PD - Germanic Languages QL - Zoology
E- American History PE - English Language QM - Human Anatomy
F- Local American, Latin
PQ - Romance Literature QP - Physiology
American History
G - Geography-Anthropology PR - English Literature QR - Microbiology
H - Social Sciences PS - American Literature R - Medicine
J - Political Science Q - Science S - Agriculture
K - Law QA - Mathematics T - Technology
L - Education QB - Astronomy U - Military Science
M - Music Scores QC - Physics V - Naval Science
ML - Music (Literature of Music) QD - Chemistry Z - Bibliography, Lib Science
Call numbers are found on the spine of books and consist of three or more lines:
Line 1: D is History; DS is Asian History.
Line 2 gives finer detail about the subject: Vietnam War
Line 3 indicates the author: Daniel C. Hallin
Here, the last line shows the year of publication, 1986.
This call number (DS 559.45 .H35 1986) refers to a book titled Uncensored War: The
Media and Vietnam by Daniel C. Hallin. In our Library, most books are shelved in the
stacks on the fourth floor. However, books with a DS call number are kept on the plateau
level. If our Library stocks this particular book, you will find it there.
One last piece of information you need to know about call numbers is how they
determine the order in which books are placed on the shelves.
 Books are first placed in alphabetical order according to their subject headings so
A precedes B and BC precedes BD.
 If two books have the same subject heading, then the order is determined by the
numerical order of the second line. So QA 873 precedes QA 2124.
 If two books have the same first two lines, the order is determined by the third
line: the letter and the decimal number that follows it. So QA 2124 .F534
precedes QA 2124 .F54 (because the decimal number 0.534 is smaller than the
decimal number 0.54).
 If the first three lines are identical, order is determined by the fourth line if it
consists of another letter and a number. The letter determines the order first of all
and, after that, the number. This number is treated as a decimal number even if
there is no decimal point so M456 precedes M46.
The diagrams below illustrate the shelf arrangement according to call number:
D DC DL F FA QA QA QA
QA QA
PN PN PN PN PN
76.15 76.73
50 55 76 6231 6231 6231 6231 6231
.E259 .E29 .E4 .E74 .F44
QE QE QE QE QE QE
862 862 862 862 862 862
.D5 .D5 .D5 .D5 .D5 .D5
L22 L35 L4571 L461 M3311 M37
You can find the call number of a book—as well as access the Library’s collection of e-
resources—by using the Library’s SmartSearch search engine.
Using SmartSearch to find a book’s call number
You can find a book’s call number using SmartSearch in the following way. Supposing
your report task is to evaluate the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, go to the
Library home page, enter your key term into the SmartSearch box, and click Search.
1. Leave the category as “All” or select “Books.” 2. Enter your search term. 3. Click on Search.
On the following (results) screen, select “Book/eBook” from the Content Type sidebar
on the left of the screen:
Select Book/eBook.
The page below shows the first few results obtained after entering the search term
“hubble space telescope” and selecting “Book/eBook” from the Content Type sidebar.
You will notice that each of the book entries on the results page has a call number.
The book’s call number.
Choose a book and click on Check Availability.
You now need to know if the Library has a copy of your chosen book so click on “Check
Availability.” The following screen will appear:
The screen shows that one copy of this book is available in the Main Library. Write down
the book’s call number and go to the stacks on the fourth level. Find the book, scan its
contents quickly and, if the book looks as if it could be useful, check it out at the
circulation desk on the plateau level.
Electronic sources
Using SmartSearch to find electronic sources
The advent of electronic media which can provide the full text of a book or an article is
making call numbers and print media in general redundant. While SmartSearch is useful
in finding the call numbers of books, its main purpose is to enable the researcher to
access the Library’s electronic resources.
Step 1: Enter your search term in the SmartSearch box with the default search category
“All”:
Step 2: On the results page, select the categories you want using the sidebar on the left of
the screen.
Choose full text items so you will get an e-

version of the source. Do not exclude news-
paper articles.
Your choice in the Content Type box will be

determined by your teacher’s requirements.
It is recommended that you use journal articles

(which include magazines), newspapers and
books to write your report. So choose these
categories or simply keep “Any.”
The sidebar includes six other boxes (author,

subject, date, language, genre and region). You
are advised to leave these in the default mode
of “Any.”
Step 3: Scan the results screen. The one below shows the first few results for the search
term ‘e-commerce security problems’:

In this box, you can choose to organize
the articles by relevance or by date
The search term Number of results (newest or oldest first).
Title and Author
Click here to
see the abstract.
Click on a title to bring up

the full text of the article.
Click here to save the

article in a folder. From
here, you can choose the
citation style (APA).
Bibliographic
details
Part of the abstract
Genre (journal, news-

paper, book, etc.) This shows the number of
times the article has been
cited in other articles.
Check every entry carefully trying to judge how useful and accessible the article might
be: Is the periodical a magazine, newspaper or journal? How old is the article? Does the
brief article description or abstract (if there is one) indicate its usefulness?
Step 4: Select two or three possible articles and then click on the title of each. The page
that appears will show the full text of the article, or there may be a choice between the
full text and a PDF version. If you have a choice, it is usually better to select the PDF
version, especially if the article has illustrations that are not shown in the full-text format.
The PDF version will provide the exact copy of the article as it appeared in the periodical
and so will show any illustrations.
Clicking on the title of the second article will bring up the screen below. It gives the full
text of the article but also indicates that a PDF version is available.
The full text article
This indicates that a PDF version is also

available.
The article appears as text

only. If it is useful, print it out.
The PDF version

If you click on the PDF icon, the following screen will appear:
This shows the article as it actually

appeared in the magazine Card
Technology Today. If it is useful,
print it out.
Step 5: The results page also enables you to make an APA reference for the articles you
choose, in the following way:
On the results page, click this icon next to
the article you have chosen. It will save the
article in a temporary folder at the foot of
the screen.
Open the folder. You will be offered a choice of styles. Select APA:
Copy and paste the reference into a Word file. Check that it is complete, accurate and
well-formatted. Make any necessary changes.
Other Library resources
It is possible that the SmartSearch search engine

will furnish you with all the sources you need to
write your report. However, you should also be
familiar with, and try out, some of the other ways
of finding sources that the Library offers. For
example, the Library subscribes to over 40
electronic databases, many of which can provide
you with full text articles.
Four of the most useful databases for you are likely to be ABI/Inform Global (mainly for
business, finance, economics, and marketing); Academic Search Premier (a
multidisciplinary database offering access to 5000 journals in science, engineering and
the humanities); Applied Science & Technology Plus (offering full text articles in, as its
name indicates, applied science and technology); and the KFUPM theses & dissertations
database (giving access to academic work written by the University’s graduate students).
In addition to these databases, the Library also has electronic subscriptions to over 700
individual journals in a variety of disciplines and to 8 e-book databases, two of the
most important being the general databases, Credo Reference and ebrary.
The KFUPM Library is one of the most advanced libraries in the Middle East offering its
users everything they need to carry out high-level research. Use your semester in English
214 to acquire effective library research skills that will benefit you both in your studies
and later in your professional work.
The Internet
The Internet is a vast collection of resources offering access to millions of websites.

However, it also requires a very careful approach since anybody can post anything on the
Internet and few websites can guarantee the accuracy and objectivity of their content.
While it is perfectly possible to confine your research to the Library’s print and electronic
resources, it is also advisable to devote some research time to discovering what the
Internet has to offer. As the Internet is constantly changing and expanding, the following
description offers a snapshot of what is currently available to the researcher.
Search engines
The first place to start is with a search engine. The most popular one, with about 80% of
all web searches, is Google. Other well known search engines are Bing, Yahoo!, and Ask.
Some search engines—referred to as metasearch engines—send search requests to
multiple search engines to locate information. Examples include Mamma, Search.com,
SurfWax, Dogpile, and WebCrawler. Some search engines of particular interest to you
specialize in academic searching; these include Magportal, Scirus, and Google Scholar.
Online magazines and websites
If you already know of specific websites, you can visit them directly and use the home
page’s search box to type in your key terms. Useful websites to visit include those of
magazines and newspapers, both general-interest and special-interest. (If you don’t know
the full web address of a magazine or newspaper, google it.) The following table shows
some possible online resources:
MAGAZINES NEWSPAPERS WEBSITES

Time Daily Telegraph (paywall) BBC.co.uk
Newsweek Daily Mail CNN.com
New Scientist New York Times (paywall) Refdesk.com
Scientific American Washington Post Internet Public Library
Popular Science Financial Times How Stuff Works
Science Illustrated Herald Tribune CNET
Science Arab News ZNET
Science News Saudi Gazette Science Daily
The Economist eHow
Business Week
PC World
PC Mag
Wired
Popular Mechanics
Popular Electronics
Discover Magazine
Air & Space
You may find that some publications are behind a paywall, meaning that they are
accessible only through subscription. An example is The Times newspaper of London.
The New York Times has a more flexible paywall in place: visitors are allowed to read ten
free articles per month, after which a fee must be paid. It should also be remembered that,
if you find that a particular publication is behind a paywall, it is possible that the
University subscribes to it so the magazine in question could still be accessible through
the SmartSearch search engine. Most websites offer free access to all current articles and
archives (ie, copies of past articles).
Key search terms
The key to effective searching—whether through the Library’s SmartSearch portal or

through the Internet—is to have good search terms. In general, the narrower you make
your search, the fewer, and the more relevant, the results will be. For example, supposing
your term report task was to discuss the problems of e-commerce security, you could start
your Internet search with Google:
 Entering e-commerce will bring you over 600 million hits.

 Entering e-commerce security will produce 200 million.
 Entering e-commerce security problems will produce over 30 million.
 Entering e-commerce security problems and solutions will bring 20 million hits.
The numbers are still enormous but, as the results are arranged by relevance, you need
only concentrate on the first couple of pages of results in order to find a suitable article.
With Google, you can usually ignore the first three or four entries on a results page as
they are likely to consist of paid-for advertisements:
Advertisements
The first ‘real’ article
After using a search engine, try visiting the website of a specific magazine, for example
The Economist magazine (www.economist.com). Type your search terms into the search
box on the magazine’s home page: The next page you receive will show all The
Economist articles that contain your search terms.
Enter your search terms
A selection of articles will appear.

Choose one that looks promising.
Click on an article to read it. If you think it will be useful for your term report, print it out
directly from the Internet rather than copying & pasting it into a Word document. This
will give you the full bibliographic details which you will need to write the APA Works
Cited reference. (If you copy & paste, you may lose some important bibliographic
information that your teacher will want to see.)
Refining your search terms
So far, we have mentioned how using multiple key words can help you to narrow your
search and obtain more relevant sources. You can refine your search terms still further by
using Boolean operators (AND, NOT and OR), quotation marks, parentheses, and
asterisks.
Boolean operators
The use of AND will narrow your search. (Note, however, that in most search engines,
including Google and SmartSearch, the AND operator is the default and so it can be
omitted. For example, hubble telescope problems is the same as hubble AND telescope
AND problems. The search engine will look for these key words in all the documents it
searches and will deliver only those documents that contain all of the search terms.
The use of the OR connector will widen your search. For example, entering hubble OR
telescope will produce documents which contain the word hubble or the word telescope
or which contain both hubble and telescope. It will produce far more documents than
simply entering hubble telescope. If you are interested in other types of telescope besides
the Hubble Telescope, this could be useful. If you are only interested in the Hubble
Telescope, it isn’t.
The use of the NOT operator will narrow your search by excluding certain words from
the results. For example, if you enter the key search term hubble NOT telescope, you will
receive documents that contain the word hubble but which do not contain the word
telescope.
Quotation marks “ “
Another refinement is to put quotation marks (“...”) around your search term. Like the
AND and NOT operators, this will narrow your search. The quotation marks tell the
search engine to search the term as a complete phrase and not as separate words. For
example, by entering “hubble space telescope,” you will receive only documents that
contain those three consecutive words. Compare this with entering hubble space
telescope or hubble AND space AND telescope, which will produce many thousands
more documents all of which contain those three words either together or separately.
Parentheses ( )
Parentheses (round brackets) enable you to combine Boolean operators and so perform
two different searches at the same time. The combination of NOT and OR will limit your
search while the combination of AND and OR will expand it. For example,
“renewable energy” NOT (tidal OR current OR wave) will enable you to find
alternative sources of energy but not those involving tidal, wave or current-generated
energy.
“nuts” AND (allergy OR “food poisoning”) will search for articles about nuts as they
relate either to allergies or to food poisoning.
Wildcard *
An asterisk (*) can be placed anywhere in a word though it is most effective at the end.
It will expand your search by finding different forms of the asterisked word. For example,
motivat* will search for all forms of the word, such as motivate, motivation,
motivational, motivator, and so on.
employ* will search for employer, employee, employment, employed, and so on.
Documenting sources
See also Successful Writing at Work, pp. 328 – 336 and 352 – 354.
When you locate a useful source, you should write a reference for it and add it to your
working bibliography, which is an evolving list of your potential sources. Documentation
also involves citing the source in your writing whenever you take an idea from it. In
English 214, you will use only the APA style to compile your references and to make
your in-text citations.
References
Your English 214 textbook gives a fairly comprehensive selection of APA references on
pages 331 to 336 and a model reference list on pages 352 to 354. The following pages
give information about the various elements that comprise a reference and give some
examples of the references that you are most likely to use in your report.
Your reference list, titled References, will appear at the end of your report. It consists of
all the sources of information that you cited in the report (except for personal
communications such as letters and interviews—see page 3). Its purpose is to enable the
reader to identify and retrieve the information you used. The reference list is double-
spaced; it is arranged in alphabetical order according to the author’s last name; and the
first line of each entry has a hanging indent. (See SWAW pp. 352 – 354.)
Print sources
References can be classified into print and electronic sources. Both typically consist of
the author name, the date of publication, the title of the work, and the publication data.
Authors and editors

Place the family name first followed by the initials for up to seven different authors. The
last author name follows an ampersand (&). For eight or more authors, write the first six,
insert three ellipsis points ( ... ), and then write the last author without an ampersand. If
the work is an edited book, place the editor(s) in the author position with (Ed.) or (Eds.)
in parentheses. If there is no author, move the title to the author position. End this
element with a full stop (period).
Kolin, P. C.
Thompson, K. A, Jones, B. B., & Wilson, C. D.
Williams, J. C (Ed.)
Date of publication
For books and journals, give the year of publication in parentheses after the author name
(or title if there is no author). For magazines and newspapers, give the year and the
exact date (the month; the day and month; or the season) separated by a comma. If the
article has no date, write n.d. (“no date”) in parentheses. Write a full stop (period) after
the closing parenthesis.
Kolin, P. C. (2012).
Walker, D. U. & Johnson, B. L. (2012, August).
Collins, P. T., Cameron, D. D., & Suleiman, S. G. (2012, September 1).
Peters, T. L. (2011, Winter).
Donald, F. W. (n.d.).
Titles
For an article or chapter title, capitalize only the first word of the title. If there is a sub-
title, capitalize the first word. Capitalize any proper nouns in the title or sub-title. Do not
use italics or quotation marks for article or chapter titles. If the chapter appears in an
edited collection, indicate this after the chapter title. End with a full stop.
Abbot, A. B. (2012). The use of style guides in report writing.

Al-Awani, M. (2012, July). Global warming: Challenges for the future.
Haybron, D. M. (2008). Protecting London from tidal flooding. In M. Hartley (Ed.),
Rising waters in Europe (pp. 214-236).
For the titles of periodicals such as journals, magazines and newspapers, give the name
in full using upper- and lower-case letters, and italicize the whole title. Place a comma
after a periodical title.
Al-Awani, M. (2012, July). Global warming: Challenges for the future. The
Environmental Monthly,
Bin Salman, A. B. (2011, May 15). Fast food and the rise of obesity in the USA. The
Washington Post,
For the title of any non-periodical works, such as a book or report, capitalize only the first
word (and the first word of any sub-title), and any proper nouns. Italicize the title. If the
publication requires additional information such as an edition number, give this in
parentheses immediately after the title without any preceding punctuation. End this
element with a full stop.
Kolin, P. C. (2012). Successful writing at work (3rd ed.).

Philips, T. & Philips, A. (2008). Writing skills in English.
Publication data (volume, issue, pages)

For journals and magazines, give the italicized volume number after the periodical title.
If each issue of the periodical is paginated separately (ie, each issue starts at page 1), add
the unitalicized issue number in parentheses immediately after the volume number, eg
54(3). (Note: while a journal article always requires a volume number or volume and
issue number, these are sometimes omitted for magazines.) Give the journal and
magazine page numbers without a preceding p. or pp. Newspapers do not require a
volume or issue number, and a newspaper’s page numbers must be preceded by p. (for a
one-page article) or pp. (for two or more pages). For journals, magazines and
newspapers, all non-consecutive page numbers must also be given. Do not give publisher
names and locations for any periodicals. End this element with a full stop.
Abingdon, M. J. (2012). Designing an integrated transport system in Montreal.

Canadian Journal of Transport, 65, 223-236.
Al-Awani, M. (2012, July). Global warming: Challenges for the future. The
Environmental Monthly, 56(4), 25-28.
The rise and fall of the euro. (2012, May 12). Business Week, 35(16), 3, 8, 12-13.
Grey, P. S. (2011, August 15). Anti-malarial nets prove a success in sub-Saharan
Africa. The Daily Telegraph, p. 16.
For books, you must give the location of the publisher (ie, the city and state for the USA,
or, outside the USA, the city and country), followed by a colon and the name of the
publisher. For US states, you will need to know the two-letter abbreviations. Do not give
page numbers for books, but you should give the page numbers for a chapter that appears
in an edited work. End this element with a full stop.
Kolin, P. C. (2012). Successful writing at work (3rd ed.). Boston, MA:

Wadsworth Cengage.
Pond, I. R. (2004). Cigarettes and advertising. London, United Kingdom: Penguin.
Shotton, B. C. (1998). The mountains of Asia. In D. Wilson & T. Smith (Eds.), A guide
to the world’s mountain ranges (pp. 231-265). New York, NY: Routledge.
Browne, A. J. (2003). Transformers. In Encyclopedia of electrical engineering (Vol.
20, pp. 113-128). London, United Kingdom: Random House.
Electronic sources
While print sources refer to the hard copy, paper editions of books, periodicals, reports,
dissertations, and so on, electronic sources are those informational materials that have
been obtained online, whether through a Library database or the Internet. Typically,
electronic sources follow the same rules for author, titles, date and publication data that
were outlined above for print sources, but they also contain an element to identify them
as having a digital origin. In order to write references for a variety of electronic sources,
you need to know about URLs and DOIs.
URLs and DOIs
URLs
You should already be familiar with the URL (“uniform resource locator”). Basically, it
is an Internet address consisting of the protocol (http://), the domain or host name
(kfupm.edu.sa), and some other information that provides a path to a specific document:
http://www.kfupm.edu.sa/SitePages/en/atozindex.aspx
When writing a reference for an Internet source, you will have to include the document
URL after the words Retrieved from. The APA recommends you give the URL only for
the website home page if the article can be easily located. However, in English 214, you
should always give the full URL. To compose your reference, copy and paste the URL
given in your browser address window directly into a Word document. Do not write a full
stop after the URL.
Many of your electronic sources will be retrieved from a database. Should you include
the database information in the URL? This is what the APA Publication Manual says:
“In general, it is not necessary to include database information. Journal coverage

in a particular database may change over time; also, if using an aggregator such as
... ProQuest ... it may be unclear exactly which database provided the full text of
the article.” (p. 192)
(For a fuller discussion of databases and references, see the OWL website at:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/.) The examples below are of the
online versions of a magazine, a journal, an encyclopedia, a book, and a nonperiodical
web document. As a general rule, include page numbers in your periodical reference if
they are given in the online document; otherwise, omit them.
Europe’s Achilles heel. (2012, May 12). Economist. Retrieved from

http://www.economist.com/node/21554530
Steptoe, A. & Sohn, H. (2012). Investment in small-to-medium enterprises: An east
London case study. E-Journal of Historical Studies , 2(3), 26-34. Retrieved from
http://www.ejhs/studies/060912/smelondon/
Map. (2012). In Encyclopædia Britannica online. Retrieved from
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/363506/map
O’Dell, R. (2012). Indoor sports. Retrieved from http://www.sportsbooks.com/html/osr/
Spiegelhalter, D. (2012, May 11). Road safety: Do more cars mean more accidents?
Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120510-more-cars-more-
accidents
DOI
There are sometimes problems with Internet sources. Links, for example, can break
temporarily or disappear permanently, meaning that the URL will no longer work. For
this reason, a group of international publishers devised the DOI, standing for “digital
object identifier.” The DOI system allocates a unique, permanent alphanumeric string to
an online document, which points to its location on the Internet. If an electronic
periodical article has been assigned a DOI, you will usually find the number on the first
page close to any copyright information, and also on the database information page for
the article.
The APA recommends that the DOI, if available, should always be used in place of the
URL. As with the URL, there is no full stop after the DOI. When writing the DOI, use
lower-case letters followed by a colon—doi: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The article below was found through SmartSearch. Note the DOI top left. The reference
for this journal is given below:
Clampin, M., Lumb, D., Sirianni, M. & Smith, E. (2005). Detectors for space science:
Future requirements and considerations for flight detectors. Experimental
Astronomy, 19, 45-67. doi: 10.1007/s10686-005-9010-5
Son of Citation Machine
The APA rules for writing references are even more complicated than the above
description suggests. A helpful tool for making references is Son of Citation Machine,
which is available at: http://citationmachine.net/index2.php.
1. Enter the website and select APA from the menu on the left. The following page will
appear:
The APA has been selected.
2. From the menu on the left, select PRINT or NONPRINT, and then your source type,
for example online newspaper article. Fill in the boxes according to the instructions:
An online newspaper has no

pages so leave this box blank.
3. The followingCopy & paste the URL from

screen will appear after clicking on Make Citation: Click
your browser’s address box.
here when everything
has been entered accurately.
4. Copy and paste the citation into your Reference list. Check carefully that it conforms
to APA guidelines for an online newspaper article and that it is correctly formatted:
Warman, M. (2012, May 12). Google brings driverless cars to the road. Daily Telegraph. Retrieved
from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9257532/Google-brings-driverless-
cars-to-the-road.html
Almost all the sources you are likely to need have been described and exemplified above.
These include both print and electronic versions of books, edited books, encyclopedias,
journals, magazines, newspapers, and web pages. You will find other types—such as blog
posts, emails, podcasts, and interviews—on pages 332 to 336 of the 214 textbook,
Successful Writing at Work.
In-text citations
Whenever you take an idea from a source and use it in your writing, you must tell the
reader where you found the idea by documenting it in the text of your report. These in-
text citations refer the reader to your Reference list at the end of your report, which he
can use to check the accuracy of your writing or to follow up on any points of interest.
You must read pages 328 to 330 of Successful Writing at Work. These pages explain
about the need for documentation and identify which sources need to be documented and
which do not.
The APA uses the author-date system for in-text citations, which requires the author’s
family name and the year of publication. Give only the year even if the reference, for
example that of a newspaper article, also includes the month and day.
Apart from the author and the year of publication, you should also include any help you
can give the reader to locate the exact information you are citing. When quoting
material, this additional help is a requirement. For paraphrasing and summarising, the
APA “encourages” writers to provide the extra help. However, in English 214, you must
always provide the extra help regardless of whether you are quoting, paraphrasing or
summarising.
For print sources, this additional help will almost always involve the page number (which
follows a ‘p.’ or ‘pp.’). For electronic sources that have no page numbers—such as most
website articles—there are several possibilities:
 If the electronic source has no page numbers but the paragraphs of the article are
numbered, give the paragraph number using the abbreviation para, eg (Jones,
2011, para. 3).
 If the electronic source has neither page numbers nor paragraph numbers but it
has section headings, give the section heading followed by the number of the
paragraph from which the idea was taken: eg (Al-Qahtani, 2012, Recent
Developments, para. 2)
 If the section heading is too long to include in its entirety, abbreviate it and place
it within quotation marks: eg (Smith, 2009, “How long will,” para. 6)
The full title of the section heading above is How long will the waves take to reach other countries?
For electronic sources, you must not manufacture your own page numbers. For example,
if you print out a four-page source from the BBC website, you cannot number these pages
1 to 4. You must, instead, follow the APA rules outlined above and use paragraph
numbers and section headings to give your readers the extra help they need to locate the
source information you used.
Some examples of in-text citations are given below:

Reference:
Kolin, P. C. (2012). Successful writing at work (3rd ed.). Boston, MA:
Wadsworth Cengage.
In-text-citation:
Kolin (2012) said that there was no need to document well-known dates, such as
the July 1969 moon landing (p. 329).
There is no need to document well-known dates, such as the July 1969 moon
landing (Kolin, 2012, p. 329).
Reference:
Miller, T. A. & Baker, C. (2008). Deep-sea exploration in the Mariana Trench. Journal of
Oceanography, 14(4), 72-85. Retrieved from http://www.joc/articles/212343/
marianatrench/
In-text-citation:
Miller and Baker (2008) identified the main risk of deep-sea diving as hypothermia
(“Hypothermia at,” para. 3).
The main risk of deep-sea diving has been identified as hypothermia (Miller &
Baker, 2008, “Hypothermia at,” para. 3).
In the example above, note the use of the ampersand (&) between the author names in the
parenthetical citation. When two authors appear in the text, the word “and” is used.
If a work has no author, use the first few words of the title and the year. Use quotation
marks (“...”) around the titles of articles, chapters or web pages. Use italics for the titles
of periodicals, books, brochures or reports:
Reference
Greeks on the brink: Exit beckons. (2012, April). Business Monthly. Retrieved from
http://www.businessmonthly.com/eurotrade/09042012
In-text-citation:
Leaders at the G8 summit all expressed a desire for the Greek economy to recover
and stay within the euro zone (“Greeks on the,” 2012, para. 1).
It is possible to have more than one citation for a particular idea: include both citations, in
alphabetical order, within the same parentheses, and separate them with a semi-colon:
Reference
Johnson, M. F. & Watkins, B. (2012, September 1). EU unemployment rises in
second quarter. Daily Trader, p. 8.
New jobless figures paint gloomy picture. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.econblog.com/news/govstats/article/
In-text citation
Despite hopes for an upward trend in the August job data, the most recent statistics
point to a continuing increase in unemployment among struggling economies
(Johnson & Watkins, 2012; “New jobless,” n.d.).
Multiple authors
In the in-text citations above, there have been one or two authors. However, it is quite
likely you will encounter sources, especially journal articles, that have three or more
authors. The rules for citing multiple authors are quite complex. They depend on whether
the authors are (1) being cited for the first time or subsequent times, and whether (2) the
parenthetical citations are being given for the first time or subsequent times. See the table
below, paying particular attention to the use of “et al.” (meaning “and the others”); the
use of “and” or the ampersand in parenthetical citations; the use of square brackets; and
the use of punctuation (commas and full stops).
You can refer to the table below for guidance, or, for a less detailed description, visit the
OWL website at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/03/.
Basic citation styles
Subsequent First Subsequent

Type First citation in citations in the parenthetical parenthetical
the text text citation citations
One author Coe (2012) Coe (2012) (Coe, 2012) (Coe, 2012)
Coe and Kent Coe and Kent (Coe & Kent, (Coe & Kent,
Two authors (2008) (2008) 2008) 2008)
Coe, Kent, and (Coe, Kent, &
Three authors Jones (2010) Coe et al. (2010) Jones, 2010) (Coe et al., 2010)
Coe, Kent, Jones, (Coe, Kent, Jones,
Four authors and Smith (2011) Coe et al. (2011) & Smith, 2011) (Coe et al., (2011)
Coe, Kent, Jones, (Coe, Kent, Jones,
Five authors Smith, and Dunn Coe et al. (2007) Smith, & Dunn, (Coe et al., 2007)
(2007) 2007)
Six or more Coe et al. (2005) Coe et al. (2005) (Coe et al., 2005) (Coe et al., 2005)
Groups with World Health (World Health

recognisable Organisation WHO (2012) Organisation (WHO, 2012)
abbreviation (WHO, 2012) [WHO], 2012)
Groups with no
recognisable University of University of (University of (University of
abbreviation Cambridge (2009) Cambridge (2009) Cambridge, 2009) Cambridge, 2009)
Personal communications
Personal communications are cited in the text of your report but, according to APA rules,
do not appear in your Reference list. Examples of personal communications include
memos, private letters, interviews, telephone calls and certain unrecoverable electronic
communications like emails and bulletin board messages that have not been archived.
To cite a personal communication in your report, give the name of the person involved,
write personal communication, and give the date. For example, if, as part of the information-
gathering for your major report, you interviewed a professor in your department, Dr.
Ahmed Mohammed Al-Suwaidan, you would cite any information you take from this
interview in one of the following ways:
In a joint enterprise, Saudi Arabia and Sudan are hoping to extract large deposits of
gold, silver and copper from the Red Sea within the next three years (A. M. Al-
Suwaidan, personal communication, September 9, 2012).
Dr. Ahmed Al-Suwaidan, KFUPM professor of Petroleum Engineering, has stated

that, in a joint enterprise, Saudi Arabia and Sudan are hoping to extract large
deposits of gold, silver and copper from the Red Sea within the next three years
(personal communication, September 9, 2012).
For the use of in-text citations with APA quotation, see Unit 1c.

ENGL 214 Unit 1b - T171

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ENGL 214 Unit 1b - T171

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Unit 1b

Finding and documenting sources

FINDING SOURCES ............................................................... 2

DOCUMENTING SOURCES ................................................... 18

The 214 Major Report:

PRIMARY RESEARCH SECONDARY RESEARCH

Interviews can be conducted face to face or over the

An example of such “special request” correspondence can be found in Successful Writing

A survey involves posing your questions to many

Original information can also be obtained by a visit to

The KFUPM Library is an open-stack library which uses

A - General Works N - Fine Arts QE - Geology

B- Philosophy-Religion-Psychology P - Linguistics QH - Biology

Line 1: D is History; DS is Asian History.

Line 2 gives finer detail about the subject: Vietnam War

Line 3 indicates the author: Daniel C. Hallin

Here, the last line shows the year of publication, 1986.

Using SmartSearch to find a book’s call number

The book’s call number.

Choose a book and click on Check Availability.

Using SmartSearch to find electronic sources

Choose full text items so you will get an e-

Your choice in the Content Type box will be

It is recommended that you use journal articles

The sidebar includes six other boxes (author,

term ‘e-commerce security problems’:

Title and Author

Click on a title to bring up

Click here to save the

Part of the abstract

Genre (journal, news-

The full text article

This indicates that a PDF version is also

The article appears as text

The PDF version

This shows the article as it actually

Other Library resources

It is possible that the SmartSearch search engine

The Internet is a vast collection of resources offering access to millions of websites.

Online magazines and websites

MAGAZINES NEWSPAPERS WEBSITES

Key search terms

The key to effective searching—whether through the Library’s SmartSearch portal or

 Entering e-commerce will bring you over 600 million hits.

The first ‘real’ article

Enter your search terms

A selection of articles will appear.

Refining your search terms

Authors and editors

the closing parenthesis.

Abbot, A. B. (2012). The use of style guides in report writing.

Kolin, P. C. (2012). Successful writing at work (3rd ed.).

Publication data (volume, issue, pages)

Abingdon, M. J. (2012). Designing an integrated transport system in Montreal.

Kolin, P. C. (2012). Successful writing at work (3rd ed.). Boston, MA:

URLs and DOIs

“In general, it is not necessary to include database information. Journal coverage

Europe’s Achilles heel. (2012, May 12). Economist. Retrieved from

An online newspaper has no

3. The followingCopy & paste the URL from

Some examples of in-text citations are given below:

Basic citation styles

Subsequent First Subsequent