Example Citation for Infotrac

Citing Articles from Databases

When you cite one of the sources from the electronic databases such as Infotrac or OCLC, you need to make the reader of your paper aware of where you got it. Remember that the idea is to give your reader enough information to be able to find the resource themselves. Below is an example of a citation from Infotrac. Note that the first part of this is just as if you had found the article in the print version. Then you add the information about where you found it online. If the URL will work for the reader, then include it (if it's not one of those super-long URL's), but if it won't, then don't. Some are not permanent web pages, and the link won't work after a few hours.

Reporter, Madeleine. "Electronic Citing Guidelines Needed." Education Monthly. 33.5

(1999): 33-39. Expanded Academic ASAP. Online. Infotrac Searchbank.

12 Oct. 1999 <URL>.

The citation above has the author, the article's title, the name of the print publication it appeared in, the volume number (33), the issue number (5), the date (1999), and the page numbers (33-39). It also tells which particular database was used, what type of database it was (an online one, not one on CD's), and what the company was that provided the particular database. Then it gives the particular date that you found the article and the URL, if you include that (see above).

Note that the first part of the citation looks just as it would if you had found the article in the actual resource--the print version of Education Monthly. Depending on the type of original resource, the appearance of this first part may change.

Note too that the information provided here would have been transformed from the format that Infotrac would have supplied it. The manner in which the author, the title, the publication information, and all that, would have changed. Don't think that because Infotrac provides the information to you in a particular format, that you need to use that same format. You need to use the MLA's format.