Sunday, May 04, 2008

Citing Your Sources

One of the things we like to see when feature articles are submitted to WynterGreene is in-text references and citations. In fact, if you are writing a feature article that incorporates ideas and research other than your own, we insist on it. When we go to print, the citations often get stripped out to save layout space (that is, unless they are citing a direct quote or someone's direct opinion), but we still require them for your initial submission.

Not sure what citing your references means? Or not sure when or how to do it? One of my favourite podcasts, Grammar Girl, recently did an episode on just this. It's focusing mainly on Internet sources, but that's okay. Similar principals apply to citing books, magazines, lectures, and even information received in workshops! The podcast also talks a little bit about how to assess a website's credibility, something that all of us should know how to do regardless of whether we are writers or readers.

You can access Grammar Girls Citing Podcasts and Websites episode, or a transcript of the episode, here .