CITATION GUIDE FOR TERM PAPERS
The following is a brief guide to the use of headings, citations, and references for term papers or projects required for all my courses. Deviations from this format may result in a lowering of you grade, hence, I suggest you follow it very closely. I also want to strongly encourage you to refer to Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writing Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations for any questions you might have concerning the mechanical aspects of writing, and to Strunk and White's The Elements of Style for questions regarding writing style.
Examples of Citations
The citation style I want you to use is the most common style used in scientific journals. This style simply provides the author's name and year of publication.
Example 1: Disturbance often leads to a patchiness or heterogeneous pattern within the landscape (White and Pickett 1985).
Example 2: According to Hadley (1990), forest susceptibility to insect attack is primarily a function of stand age and size structure.
Example 3: "Disturbance is any relatively discrete event in time that disrupts ecosystem, community, or population structure and changes resources, substrate availability, or the physical environment" (White and Pickett 1985, p. 7).
Note that when a quotation is used, the page number of the quote must also be given. Avoid the use of long quotes! Generally, you can paraphrase the material in longer quotes more concisely than it was originally written. In addition, long quotes require additional format changes in your paper (see Turabian's guide noted above).
Example 4: Veblen et al. (1991) found that blowdown accelerated succession in the subalpine forests of Rocky Mountain National Park.
In cases where there are more than two authors, the Latin "et al." ("and others") is used for brevity.
Example 5: These conditions have been reported elsewhere in the literature (Veblen et al. 1990, Franklin and Spies 1991, Waring et al. 1991).
When multiple citations are used, they are listed first in chronological order (earliest publication first) and then in alphabetical order when two or more references are cited for the same year.
Examples of References
EXAMPLE 1: - Journal article (#s refer to volume and pages)
Goldblum, D. 1997. The effects of treefall gaps on understory vegetation in New York, USA.
Journal of Vegetation Science. 8: 125-132.
Veblen, T.T., Hadley, K.S., Reid, M.S., and Rebertus, A.J. 1991. Methods of detecting past
spruce beetle outbreaks in Rocky Mountain subalpine forests. Canadian Journal of
Forest Research. 21: 242-254.
EXAMPLE 2: - Book chapter -
Berryman, A.A. 1982. Population dynamics of bark beetles. In: Bark beetles of North
American conifers: A system for the study of evolutionary ecology. Edited by J.B.
Mitton and K.B. Sturgeon. University of Texas Press, Austin. pp. 264-314.
EXAMPLE 3: - Book -
Fritts, H.C. 1976. Tree rings and climate. Academic Press, New York.
EXAMPLE 4: - Report or miscellaneous publication -
Furniss, M.M. and Carolin, V.M. 1980. Western forest insects. U.S. Forest Service
Miscellaneous Publication No. 1339.
EXAMPLE 5: - Dissertation or thesis -
Swetnam, T.W. 1987. A dendroecological assessment of western spruce budworm, Choristoneura
occidentalis Freeman, in the southern Rocky Mountains. Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.