September 2007 Archives

Librarians at UNLV have created a new web site in support of the 2008 LOEX of the West conference. LOEX of the West 2008 will be held on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas from June 4-6, 2008. The theme of the 2008 conference is "Hit the jackpot: successful experimentation and innovation in instruction."

LOEX-of-the-West is not officially associated with the LOEX Clearinghouse for Library Instruction at the Eastern Michigan University Library. However, the LOEX-of-the-West conferences have followed the LOEX conference model of a limited number of attendees, promoting an atmosphere for library professionals to learn and share experiences and ideas with others.

To answer the question, visit the Wikipedia page on Citing Wikipedia - it gives an explanation and examples for each major citation style, including APA, MLA and Turabian.

Be aware that Wikipedia may not be the best source of information in an academic paper. If the facts you are citing can be verified in another source (such as a book, an online reference book, or a journal article, a good strategy would be to use that source instead. One reason is that the purpose of a citation is to allow your reader to examine the evidence you used, and Wikipedia changes daily. Books and online reference books usually don't change.

Of course, there are times when it is appropriate to choose and cite Wikipedia. Wikipedia records many fascinating discussions about millions of topics, and you may want to refer to those controversies in your essay. The Williams College library web site has a good discussion of when to choose Wikipedia.

To create any kind of citation fast, try BibMe. To build a bibliography slowly with a long list of sources that you plan to reuse in later projects, check out RefWorks.

The UNLV Libraries web site has more style guide info, bibliography tools, and information on academic integrity.