Citing is crucial because it gives credit to the author for their interpretation of information, research or opinion on a matter. It acknowledges the author’s words as valid and makes our writing more credible. The reader can interpret our words based off of the original work of others; choosing not to cite is a prime example of plagiarism. If citation is not enforced within our blog then the quality of the information that we post is as good as invalid.
For our blog, citations will be included for any interviews that we document and additional resources that we use to support our arguments. We want to pull in other peoples’ opinions in order to make our arguments clear and strong. When we cite our resources, we will provide an internal citation right after the sentence or phrase from the outside source, and the full citation will be listed at the bottom of each blog post when necessary. We plan to use formal MLA citations which follow the basic format shown in the example below:
Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of Publication.
For additional citations of online articles, encyclopedias, or books with multiple authors, we will use library resources and websites such as http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource to get the proper format for our citations.
Our group decided to use a bibliography of MLA citations in companion with posting hyperlinks as in-text citations. MLA is simple and easy to understand for readers as well as maintain a certain amount of credibility as a blogger. The simplicity of the hyperlinks allow our readers to click and have direct access to the information while the formal citations at the end keep up a professional appearance. The combination of MLA style citations and hyperlink citations will provide the best experience for our readers.
