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Ceramics Research Guide

Updated guide

Citation Format: MLA

Citations are important for the following reasons:

They give credit to the original creator of the information

They organize your information

They solidify your research by making it more credible

They allow for other researchers to track back to other sources of related information and cite specific authors

What exactly is included in a citation? All the important details of the source! Depending on the citation format and source type, they will be organized uniquely. 

Information typically included in a citation: (Not in order)

Author, Title of source, Title of container, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location

For online resources regarding citation formats, we recommend Purdue Owl

Remember - this to get started, you do not want to copy and paste! It is a tool to help you build the bones of your citation - always edit before turning in your work!

 

Examples

Let's say you find the following article for your research, and want to create a citation. You will need to analyze the details of the source to form your citation.

From Purdue Owl:

Citing a Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph

Provide the artist's name, the title of the artwork in italics, and the date of composition. Finally, provide the name of the institution that houses the artwork followed by the location of the institution (if the location is not listed in the name of the institution, e.g. The Art Institute of Chicago).

Goya, Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800, Museo del Prado, Madrid.

If the medium and/or materials (e.g., oil on canvas) are important to the reference, you can include this information at the end of the entry. However, it is not required.

For photographic reproductions of artwork (e.g. images of artwork in a book), treat the book or website as a container. Remember that for a second container, the title is listed first, before the contributors. Cite the bibliographic information as above followed by the information for the source in which the photograph appears, including page or reference numbers (plate, figure, etc.).

Goya, Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800, Museo del Prado, Madrid. Gardener's Art Through the Ages, 10th ed., by Richard G. Tansey and Fred S. Kleiner, Harcourt Brace, p. 939.

If you viewed the artwork on the museum's website, treat the name of the website as the container and include the website's publisher and the URL at the end of the citation. Omit publisher information if it is the same as the name of the website. Note the period after the date below, rather than the comma: this is because the date refers to the painting's original creation, rather than to its publication on the website. Thus, MLA format considers it an "optional element."

Goya, Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800. Museo del Prado, museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-family-of-carlos-iv/f47898fc-aa1c-48f6-a779-71759e417e74.