The 2023-2024 World of 8 Billion student video contest is now closed. Winners will be announced on May 21, 2024!

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How to Cite Your Sources for your World of 8 Billion Video

Citing your sources is essential to any research project, including your World of 8 Billion video! We receive many questions on the best ways to do this. We understand that it can be confusing, especially trying to fit everything in a video that is a minute long, so we wanted to clarify what we are looking for when we ask for your cited sources.

How to Make Your Citation List

While you are researching for your video, you should keep a list of any resource that you use for information, whether that be from the library, Google Scholar, or some other online resource. Our Video Project Organizer has a handy chart in the Research section that serves as a great way to organize your sources! But you can use any method you want, as long as you have a way to keep track of what sources you’re using.

All information presented in the video must be cited, giving credit to the original source. Plagiarism of any kind will result in disqualification. 

However, you do not have to include citations in your video. You can simply keep a list of your citations, and if your video is selected as a finalist, we will ask you to submit your citation list. Your citation list does not have to be formatted in any specific style, you can simply use links, or use a style like MLA or APA if your teacher prefers that.

Copyright-free Images and Music

Another common question we get is, “does my citation list need to include the images and music I use?” For the contest, we require all images and music to be copyright-free and royalty-free, meaning that you should be able to use them for your video without needing to ask permission or cite them as a source. We have a list of 12 Websites for Finding Copyright/Royalty Free Images and Music that can be helpful if you need to find some for your video.

The only reason you would be allowed to use copyrighted materials is if you had a license to use the material. In this case, you must provide written permission for all copyrighted materials.

You may write your own music or use “stock” music that is included in some editing software. If you choose to write your own music, make sure you have the composer sign the Actor Release Form.

Using Creative Commons

If you use photos for your video that fall under a Creative Commons license, please also link those in your citation list, along with the Creative Commons attribution. You can find Creative Commons photos to use on Google Images by using the filtering tools and selecting “Creative Commons licenses”.

A screenshot of a Google image search, with an arrow pointing to the filter that allows users to select Creative Commons.

You can also search the Creative Commons database for images to use.

When you find a photo you want to use, you will be able to see if the photo falls under Creative Commons, and if so, which attribution is required. 

The Creative Commons attribution will be listed with the photo, like in the Wikimedia Commons example below:

A screenshot showing an image on Wikimedia Commons.

So if you were using this photo, you would list it in your citation list like this:

A simple model of Earth using Autodesk Maya” by Kevin Gill is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Public domain images do not need to be cited on your source list or attributed.

Questions

If you have any questions about your citation list or sources, ask your teacher or send us an email at [email protected].