Citation & Writing Style
IB requires citations for all references including charts and images that were created by others and to use internal citations as necessary within a paper. There are many writing styles each with its own set of rules for formatting a paper and citing resources used for research, however, the bibliographic information needed to create a citation is the same, regardless of the style. The basic information required for all citations includes: the author, title of work, and date of publication. Depending on the type of source used additional information will be required. Read the IB publication Effective Citing and Referencing for additional information.
Three Citation and Writing Styles
MLA (Modern Language Association) style - used by the Humanities
APA (American Psychological Association) style - used by Education, Psychology, and Sciences
CMOS aka Chicago/Turabian (Chicago Manual of Style) style - used by Business, History, and the Fine Arts
IB does not require the use of a particular style, although, it may be of value to use the style for the subject being researched. View a side-by-side comparison chart of the three citation styles at the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
20191212CitationChart.pdfIt is important to understand the writing style being used since a paper will require different in-text citations, use of punctuation, margins, page numbers, and other formatting details depending on which style is selected.
Citations Made Easy
NoodleTools is a citation creator and research paper organizer. Login with your school Google Account to access all of the features. Logging in with any other Google or email account will only provide access to the citation creator. Citations can be created in all three of the styles listed above. Create a new project for each research paper and choose the citation style and advanced level from the “Create a new project” dialog box.
Dashboard - when a NoodleTools project is created or opened the dashboard will be opened. There is a place for a research question and thesis statement. Here you can also create a Google Doc that will be connected to the project. Options for sharing with a teacher or collaborating with a classmate are also available on the dashboard. There is also a to-do list that can be used to track research tasks.
Sources - this is where citations are created. Start a new citation, select the source type, then fill in the form in as much detail as possible. The is a space to annotate citations if needed. Once submitted NoodleTools will begin to create, depending on the style used, a correctly formatted works cited/references/bibliography page of sources. Once completed this source page can be sent to Google Docs, Word, HTML, and other formats by using the print/export feature. In-text citation formats can be found under the options menu for each citation under the heading “In-text reference.”
Notecards - notecards can be created and linked to sources for accurate citation. Notecards can be organized using piles, color coding, and tagging. An outline can be created and notecards can be dragged & dropped into the appropriate sections of the outline.
Paper - create or access a Google Doc that was created using the “start paper” link on the dashboard.
The NoodleTools knowledge base has links to Tutorials on all aspects of NoodleTools. The knowledge base can be accessed through the help menu in the upper right corner under the email login. Get started with the NoodleTools Quick Guide for Students.
Annotated Citations
Annotated citations help you to understand and justify the use of your sources. They also help you to plan your research and critically evaluate your sources.
How to Compile an Annotated Bibliography
Critically Analyzing Information Sources: Critical Appraisal and Analysis