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Montana History: HSTA 255

Your guide to researching Montana history. Find articles and books in the library and access great websites on the internet. Cite your sources in MLA or APA style.

In order to use and build on outside ideas and information in your research paper, you must cite where information comes from.

There are 4 main reasons to cite information:

  1. Prevent plagiarism
  2. Provide enough information for your readers to find the source you used
  3. Give credit to the author
  4. Provide credible support to your writing

Citation Basics

Following a specific style for your citations makes it very clear when you are citing outside information AND helps the reader find your sources easily.

For each resource that is used in a paper, there are two parts to the citation: the in-text citation and the list of Works Cited

In-Text Citation

This is a very brief notation in the body of your paper that indicates you are using information or ideas that are not your own. It points your reader to the source's full citation in your list of Works Cited at the end of your paper. 

  • Every time you quote, paraphrase, or summarize information from an outside source, you must provide an in-text citation directly after it.
  • A basic in-text citation includes the author's last name and the page number on which the cited information is found in the source.
  • A basic in-text citation is placed at the end of the cited material: 
    • Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).
  • You can also use a signal phrase to introduce your material. In this case only the page number is in parentheses:
    • Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263).

Works Cited

The list of works cited is an alphabetized list of all of the resources you used in your research paper or assignment.

  • The list is double-spaced with a hanging indent, meaning that, for a citation on more than one line, each line after the first is indented 1" from the left margin. Highlight your list, then press Ctrl+T.
  • The first part of your in-text citation (usually author or title) should match the first part of the same resource in your list of works cited.

Works Cited: BOOK

To cite a book in MLA format, you can find most of the required information on the book's title page and verso (back of the title page).

The basic form for a book citation is:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date.

Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House. MacMurray, 1999.

Wysocki, Anne Frances, et al. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Utah State UP, 2004. (Three or more authors)

Article from a Research Database (Journal Article)

When citing an article from a library database, pay attention to the article title versus the journal title.  All of the information for your citation is usually available on the first and last page of the article.

The basic form for a journal citation is:

Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal, Volume, Issue, Year, pages.

Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.

Visit the Purdue OWL MLA Style website to learn how to cite articles from an online magazine or newspaper found on the open web.

Web site

When you are citing a Web site, you have the option of including the URL, or web address, for the page, as well as the date you accessed it. This can help give the reader context for the citation, but neither are necessary.

The basic form for a website citation is:

Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number, Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available), URL, DOI or permalink. Date of access (if applicable).

The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2008, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl. Accessed 23 Apr. 2008.

“Athlete's Foot - Topic Overview.” WebMD, 25 Sept. 2014, www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/tc/athletes-foot-topic-overview.

Visit the Purdue OWL MLA Style website to learn how to cite documents that have the same organizational author and website name, or other types of sites.

Generative AI

In August 2025, MLA updated their guidance for citing responses or output from generative AI tools.

The two major changes are as follows:

  • A stable, shareable URL to the AI conversation you are citing is preferred, but a general link to the AI tool can be provided if that stable URL feature isn’t available in the tool you are using.
  • The AI tool’s model name or number should be included in the Version element. So, for example, the works-cited-list examples in this post cite the GPT-4o model of ChatGPT.

Your reference citation should include the following information per MLA:

  • Author: We do not recommend treating the AI tool as an author. This recommendation follows the policies developed by various publishers, including Cambridge University Press, the partner publisher of the MLA’s journal PMLA. 

  • Description of chat/prompt: Describe what was generated by the AI tool. This may involve including information about the prompt if you have not done so in the text. 

  • Name of AI tool:  Name the AI tool (e.g., ChatGPT).

  • Version: Name the specific AI model or model version as specifically as possible. For instance, the examples in this post were developed using the GPT-4o model of ChatGPT.

  • Publisher: Name the company that made the tool.

  • Date: Give the date the content was generated.

  • Location: Give the stable, shareable URL for accessing the generated content (e.g., text, an image, etc.). If the tool you are using doesn’t provide a stable, shareable URL, provide the general URL for the tool.

Format:

"Description of chat" prompt. Name of AI tool, version of AI tool, Company, Date of chat, URL.

Examples: 

“Describe the theme of nature in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park” prompt. ChatGPT, model GPT-4o, OpenAI, 23 Sept. 2024, chatgpt.com/share/66f1b0a0-d704-8000-be9a-85f53c850607.

"Examples of harm reduction initiatives" prompt. Copilot for Microsoft 365, Microsoft, 6 Nov. 2025, https://copilot.microsoft.com.

In-Text Citation Examples:

("Describe the theme of nature in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park")

("Examples of harm reduction")

 

MLA also recommends acknowledging when you used the tool in a note or your text as well as verifying any sources or citations the tool supplies.

Get more information from MLA:

References

Scheelke, A. (2023, July 10). AI, ChatGPT, and the Library. https://libguides.slcc.edu/ChatGPT/InformationLiteracy