Research

What is it?

A Works Cited is an alphabetical list of the sources (also called "works") you used in the body of your project.

 

Where does it go?

It should be the last page in your project.

 

Why do I need to do it?

When you do a research project you must give credit to the sources from which you found the material you used directly in your project. This is called citing your sources. You must do it whenever you use a complete piece of someone else's material (like a quotation, a picture, a song, statistical data, or even someone else's idea that you put into your own words) and you must do it even if you only use a recognizable part of that material. If you do not cite your sources, you are committing plagiarism by calling someone else's work your own.

 

Isn't this a Bibliography?

People use the terms interchangeably, but they are actually different. A bibliography is a list of related reading material that your reader can look for if they want to do more reading on your topic. A Works Cited is a list of only those sources from which you used borrowed material in your project, and which you cited with parenthetical documentation within your project. It is a fine difference. If your teacher asks for a bibliography, give them a Works Cited. It is probably what they meant to ask for. Make sure that you know whether you need to format it in MLA, APA, or Chicago style.

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Resources

• http://www.easybib.com

• http://www.citationmachine.net/

• https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/purdue_owl.html

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