At least half (at least five) of your citations should be from the primary literature.

Using the Web:

The internet provides enormous access to information. By all means, use it. There are pitfalls, however. How good is the information you get from the internet? It's hard to say. The strength of the primary literature is its careful and rigorous review process. A study published in Conservation Biology was submitted to the journal editor, who sent it to two other scientists known to be expert in the same field. After a thorough, anonymous review by two peer reviewers, the editor may reject the paper (probably the fate of half the papers submitted), or accept it after the author makes careful and thorough revisions. Then the paper is published. Now, what about that report you found on the web? No controls, no review, nada.

Professors are still adjusting to the arrival of web-based term papers. Here are my rules.

1. Use the web as much as you like. You'll find interesting stuff.
   
2. You must still use the primary literature. See the bolded sentence just above.
   
3. You may include web citations, just as you may include newspaper or magazine articles. Cite them appropriately (see following pages).
   
4. Web sources vary in quality. I am much more positively inclined to credit information coming from NASA's home page then something called, "Crazy Bob's Weather Page". Be careful to rely on quality web sources. It is your job to discriminate among web sources in terms of their quality.

The web also offers opportunity to plagiarize ("to steal [the language, ideas or thoughts] from another, representing them as one's own original work"). The reason we cite the work of others, in term papers and scientific papers, is to give credit to the work of others, to add authority to our claim (we aren't just saying this off the top of our heads – someone did a careful study), and to be honest about our own contribution and role. Any substantial claim or argument that you make, if it evolved directly out of your reading of the works of others, should be cited.

Typically, students encounter problems with citations and plagiarism not because they purposefully make incorrect use of the work of others, but because they are still learning the rules. We hope this will help you learn those rules.

Format For Literature Citations:

Literature citations in your term paper should follow the format below. For references not listed, refer to:
CBE Style Manual Committee (CBE). 1983. Council of Biology Editors Style Manual: A Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers. Council of Biology Editors, Bethesda, MD.

A journal or magazine article:
Bryant, P.J., and P. Simpson. 1984. Intrinsic and extrinsic control of growth in developing organs. Quart. Rev. Biol. 59: 387-415.

A book:
Ling, G.N. 1984. In Search of the Physical Basis of Life. Plenum Press, New York.

Chapter in book:
Southwood, T.R.E. 1981. Bionomic strategies and population parameters. Pages 30-52 in R.M. May, ed. Theoretical Ecology. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.

Technical report:
Lassiter, R. R., and J.L. Cooley. 1983. Prediction of ecological effects of toxic chemicals, overall strategy and theoretical basis for the ecosystem model. EPA-600/3-83-084. National Technical Information Service PB 83-261-685, Springfield, VA.

Newspaper article:
Bishop, J.E. Do flies spread ills or is that claim merely a bugaboo? The Wall Street Journal. 1982 Nov. 4:1 (col. 4), 23 (col. 1).

Personal communication:
Jones, M.R. 30 February 1996. Personal communication.

Web Sources:
MLA Style. The Modern Language Association of America. 1998. 13 December 1999.  http://www.mla.org/main_stl-nf.htm#sources.  

I visited this site on December 13, 1999. This document gives protocols for various types of web souces. You can check it out if you wish, but the above format for WWW sites should cover most of your needs.