How To Do Research: Citing Your Sources

For more citation help, go to the Citation Help guide.

It has examples and resources for citing in MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian styles.

Citing Your Sources

Whenever you quote, paraphrase, summarize, refer to, or use ideas from other work or writer, you need to cite your source.  You can use a parenthetical citation within the text of your paper, or you can use an endnote or footnote to cite.  At the end of your paper, you should include a list of all the works that you used to write your paper, either as a Bibliography, References, or Works Cited list.  Remember, if you do not cite your sources, it is plagiarism!

This guide shows has a page for MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian citation styles.  You should ask your instructor which type of style to use for that class.  Under each tab, there is more information about each style, some reference books, and some online guides that can explain that style's rules and show you examples.

(Image courtesy of ddpavumba / Freedigitalphotos.net)

Whether you're using another author's exact words or putting their ideas into your own words, you need to cite them.  Here is a video explanation:

(Video courtesy of Kevin deLaplante / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atTRlg6iaGo)