Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Welcome to the Saddleback Library. My name is Elizabeth and I am the Distance Learning
Librarian at Saddleback College.
You asked: How do I read a citation?
A lot of times when there is a need to cite your sources or write references, a bibliography,
or work cited for an instructor, students are overwhelmed with the information available
to them. What means what and what should they use?
Don’t worry! The Saddleback Library is here to help!
Let’s take a look at a few different databases and how information is organized in each of
them. Once you understand how to identify what information is what, it will be easy
to cite your sources.
For this video I did an advanced search for electronic textbooks in college and universities.
I limited my search to full text and scholarly journals. You can see how to do a similar
search by watching the the videos on the SaddlebackLIBRARY YouTube channel. We are going to look at the
first result for each of these searches and I will show you some common information across
all the results.
The first results is for Academic OneFile. The title of the article is Student use of
a free online textbook. The title is a hyperlink and we will click on it later to look at more
information. Next we see the name of the Author, Sherry Robinson. Academic OneFile has labeled
this as a report and then you can see the name of the publication. It is Academy of
Educational Leadership Journal and is also a hyperlink. Next we have the numbers 15.3
and that is the volume and issue number. Sept. 2011 is when the journal was published and
this article is one page (p1) with a word count of 3554.
If I click on the hyperlinked title of the article I can see the same information I mentioned
above and then the article. Scrolling down to the bottom of the article I see some more
information I could use.
Academic OneFile has given me a source citation for MLA 7th edition. Here you can see the
author’s name, last name first. The title of the article in quotes. The title of the
journal in italics. The volume, issue, year of publication, name of database and date
I retrieved this article. You could copy this citation as starting point but would have
to fix a few things when you add it to your Work Cited page as a journal article from
a database. Remember things like hanging indents and alphabetical order are really important
in your reference lists as well!
Next we have a Document URL and this link will take you directly back to this article.
The Gale Document Number is the way of identifying a document on a Work Cited or Reference list.
In the latest versions of MLA and APA there is a place to add the Document Number.
A quick word about creating MLA, APA, and Chicago reference lists. Each of these style
guides have different guidelines and rules. All the information we just looked at might
be used in these different style guides but it ends up being used in different orders
and with slightly different terms defining what you need. My favorite tool to use for
citing sources is NoodleTools. NoodleTools is free to Saddleback College students and
can be accessed through the Saddleback Library webpage. View, NoodleTools: making citations
easy on YouTube to learn how to use this resource.
Now let’s look at another database.
This is the JSTOR subscription database. The first entry for my search has a hyperlinked
title of Twentieth-Century Spanish Textbooks: A Generational Approach. The Author is Patricia
Pardinas-Barnes and her name is also a hyperlink. Next we have the publication name, Hispania,
followed by the volume number, issue number, publication date and page numbers.
Clicking on the hyperlinked title, I see some additional information. JSTOR has the publication
information available and a Stable URL. This Stable URL is the same as the Document URL
in our last subscription database and will take you directly back to this article.
The next database is Academic Search Premier. I hope you are starting to see a pattern here.
The title is Steps to a Successful Physical Education Teacher Education Workshop is a
hyperlink. The authors names are next followed by the publication title. Then we have volume,
issue, pages and publication date.
Clicking on the title, I see more information I can use for a citation. The title, author
and source we already covered. In this case Academic Search Premier uses “source”
for the publication title. Scrolling down I see more information but the information
I will need for a citation will be the Accession Number and Database.
Our last database is ProQuest. Let’s see how much you have learned.
What is this hyperlinked group of words?
That’s right! It is the title of the article.
And these names here? That’s right! The authors of the article.
Nursing Education Perspectives is the ….... Name of the publication! Good work.
These numbers here are the …... Volume and issue number.
This date is the..... publication date.
And these numbers floating alone out here....... those would be the page numbers.
Clicking on the title hyperlink, let’s see what else we find. The same information we
just covered is at the top of the article with the author’s names and publication
now having hyperlinks. At the bottom of the article Proquest had Indexing (details). Scrolling
through this I can see more information than we just covered. Of importance for citing
this article are going to be the ProQuest document ID, Document URL, and the Database.
Looks like I can pick either of these databases for this article as it is in both of them.
I hope this video helps to explain what is what when it comes to information for a citation.
Good luck with your citing!
Thank you for using the Saddleback Library. Please contact us with any questions you have.
Visit us in the Library, Chat with a Librarian online for a quick question, Call the Refernce
Desk to speak to a Librarian, Schedule a Research Consultation and visit our webpage at saddleback.edu/library.
You can even Friend us on Facebook. The Saddleback Library, how can we help you?