Unit 5-2 Bibliographic Style for Citing Internet Resources

After completing this unit, you will be able to:

• Explain the differences among APA, MLA, and CMS styles.
• Know when to use APA, MLA, or CMS style.
• Cite Internet resources in APA, MLA, or CMS style.
• Use the Fair Use guidelines to determine whether your use of a copyrighted work is fair.

Reading

Read chapter 14 of the Internet Literacy textbook to study the concepts covered by this unit. This chapter enables you to learn how to cite Internet resources in APA, MLA, or CMS style. Although it is a short chapter, it's very important, because when you write the term paper that is required in this course, you must follow the correct bibliographic style. Read your textbook carefully, and refer to the examples provided there when you write your paper. Note especially how some of the references have been linked to other documents on the Web. Your paper should likewise link to other online resources.

Online Activities

• APA stands for American Psychology Association. The APA has developed one of the most popular styles for scholarly writing. In the APA section of the Interlit Web site, you will find resources related to APA style.
• MLA stands for Modern Language Association. In the MLA section of the Interlit Web site, you'll find resources related to MLA style.
• CMS stands for Chicago Manual of Style. It's the world-renowned style guide created by the University of Chicago Press. In the CMS section of the Interlit Web site, you'll find resources related to CMS style.
• You'll find a sample term paper presented in all three styles (APA, MLA, and CMS) at the Interlit Web site. Study especially the sample paper written in the style in which you choose to write your term paper.
• According to the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia, students are permitted to download into term papers certain portions of copyrighted works. These portions include:
  • up to 10% or 1000 words of a text, whichever is less. Special rules apply to poetry; see section 4.2.2 of the guidelines for details.
  • not more than 5 images by an individual artist or photographer; for anthologies, not more than 10% or 15 images, whichever is less.
  • up to 10% but never more than 30 seconds of music, lyrics, and music video.
  • up to 10% of motion media or 3 minutes, whichever is less.
  • up to 10% or 2500 fields or cell entries, whichever is less, from a copyrighted database or data table.
• It is important for everyone to read the full text of the Fair Use Guidelines, which you can get by following the Interlit Web site links to the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia. Studying these guidelines will help you develop a good feel for what's fair.