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Citing Sources - US

Publisher

The Publisher is the entity responsible for producing the work and making it available to the public. The publisher may include:

  • the publisher of a book
  • the studio, company or network that produced a film or tv show
  • the institution responsible for creating a website
  • the theater company that put on a play
  • the agency/department that produced a government publication

You do not need to include a publisher for any periodicals or any self-published works.

21. Publisher (When to Include)

Publisher (element 7) - When to include: Do NOT include publisher information when citing newspapers, magazines, and journals. DO thoroughly investigate the publisher on all websites (e.g., “About” page, breadcrumbs, root URL [what ends with the .com/.edu/.gov/.org, etc.], “Contact”, “Mission”, etc.) but check the rules about redundancy before including it in the citation. Publisher MUST be included in book citations (print AND eBooks).

Emberling, Geoff, and Helen McDonald. "Recent Finds from the Northern Mesopotamian City  Tell Brak." Antiquity, vol. 76, no. 294, 2002, p. 949. World History in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A95914911/WHIC?u=new11256&xid=635aebee. 

[Journal: no publisher!]

Goodstein, Laurie. “Zoroastrians Keep the Faith, and Keep Dwindling.” New York Times, 6 Dec. 2006, nyti.ms/2lCCvwp. 

[Newspaper: no publisher!]

Krawchenko, Katiana, “Chris Murphy Says Assault Weapons Ban Would Have Stopped Las Vegas Shooter.” CBSNews, Columbia Broadcasting System, 13 Oct. 2017, www.cbsnews.com/news/chris-murphy-says-assault-weapons-ban-would-have-stopped-las-vegas-shooter.

[CBSNews is the brand, and given that the publisher information gives the details of the abbreviation, we will cite it this way. CBSNews is not a periodical. It is a news website, so we include the publisher.]

Viviano, Frank. “A Tiny Country Feeds the World: Agricultural Giant Halland is Changing the Way We Farm.” Photographed by Luca Locatelli, National Geographic, Sept. 2017, pp. 82-109. 

[Magazine: no publisher!]

Whitehead, Kim. Major Nations of the Modern Middle East: Afghanistan. e-Book. Mason Crest, 2016. 

Yoon, Nicola. The Sun is Also a Star. Delacorte, 2016.

22. Publisher Redundancy

Publisher (element 7) - Redundancy: If author and publisher are the same, omit the author. If the webpage name and the website name are the same (which is very unusual, so look twice!), include only the website as title in italics. If the website and its publisher share the same name (which is common), omit the publisher and include the container only. Do not repeat information in the citation. Check rules on when to include publisher before citing. 

“Burkina Faso.”  Country Profiles, British Broadcasting Corporation, 14 Aug. 2017, www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13072774. 

    Author is the publisher: British Broadcasting Corporation. Omit author.

Development Research Group. “Poverty Headcount Ratio at $1.90 a Day (% of population) 1981-2013.” World Bank, 2017, data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?end=2013&locations=1W&start=1981&view=chart.

    Container and publisher share same name: World Bank. Omit publisher.

“Five Laws of Media and Information Literacy.” Communication and Information, United Nations Educational Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 2017, unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/media-development/media-literacy/five-laws-of-mil.

    Try to identify a container name that is different than the publisher name where possible. In this case, “Communication and Information” is written across the top of this UNESCO page, so we made that the container and UNESCO the publisher.

“Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” United Nations, www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html. Accessed 26 Oct. 2017.

Container and publisher share the same name: United Nations, which happens to be the author as well. Omit the author and the publisher. Bottom line: citations should include something in italics.

3. Abbreviations

 

Citations - Abbreviations: No abbreviations. Spell it out (e.g., TED is Technology, Engineering, and Design [not TED Talks!], NPR is National Public Radio; BBC is British Broadcasting Corporation, CNN is Cable News Network). 

  • A&E: Arts and Entertainment (publisher of Biography.com and History.com)
  • BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
  • Biography.com: Biography
  • CNN: Cable News Network
  • Encyclopedia.com: Encyclopedia
  • History.com: History
  • MSNBC: Microsoft National Broadcasting Company
  • NPR: National Public Radio
  • PBS: Public Broadcasting Service 
  • TBS: Turner Broadcasting Systems (publisher of Cable News Network)
  • TED: Technology Engineering and Design
  • UNESCO: United Nations Educational Scientific, and Cultural Organization
  • UNICEF: United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund