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Citation Usage
What is a Citation?
- A citation is the basic information required to identify and locate a specific source (e.g. book, book chapter, article, website, video, etc).
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Different academic disciplines have specific guidelines for organizing material and citing sources. These rules are published as style manuals.
Why Do We Cite Our Sources?
- To document sources and leads for future researchers to investigate, verify, or explore.
- To prevent plagiarism by differentiating another researcher's ideas and arguments from your own.
- Proper citation practices put you into a larger scholarly conversation on the topic, and makes your own work more credible.
To avoid plagiarism make sure to correctly paraphrase (put into your own words) and include citations for information that was not your original thought.
What to Cite:
- Any ideas or direct quotes used
- When you paraphrase (using concepts and quotes indirectly)
- Terms unique to an author’s research
- Items including textual facts, numeric data, and/or visual information
What Not to Cite:
- Proverbs
- Cliche quotes
- Common knowledge (examples: Barack Obama was the 44th U.S. President; Thomas Edison invented the phonograph; "Mona Lisa" was painted by Leonardo da Vinci; Hydrogen has the atomic number 1).
For determining “common knowledge”, consider if a skilled researcher would need to verify. When in doubt, cite the item to be safe.
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MLA Handbook
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ISBN: 9781603293518Publication Date: 2021-04-22The MLA Style Manual (9th Edition) details a system for documenting sources in scholarly writing. Information literacy is important, now more than ever. For trusted information, go to the source!
For nearly a century, the Modern Language Association has published trusted resources for teachers and students in the humanities. Librarians know they can rely on the MLA International Bibliography and the MLA Handbook to help writers find—and cite—reliable sources.
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Publication Manual (OFFICIAL) 7th Edition of the American Psychological Association
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ISBN: 9781433832161Publication Date: 2019-10-01The APA Style Manual (7th Edition) covers the aspects of scholarly writing most pertinent to writing in psychology, nursing, business, communications, engineering, and related fields. It specifically addresses the preparation of draft manuscripts being submitted for publication in a journal and the preparation of student paper being submitted for a course assignment.
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The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th Edition
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ISBN: 9780226817972Publication Date: 2024-09-19Now in its 18th edition, The Chicago Manual of Style—with more than a thousand pages in print or more than two thousand hyperlinked paragraphs online—has become the authoritative reference work for writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers. This hundred-plus-year evolution has taken place under the ongoing stewardship of Chicago’s renowned editorial staff, aided by suggestions and requests from the Manual’s many readers.
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JSTOR Tutorial: Citing Scholarly Work
Learn how to create citations in the body of your writing, how to compile a list of the works you've cited, as well as how to avoid plagiarism by distinguishing your words and ideas from those of your sources. -
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.
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Blackboard: SafeAssign
Blackboard's SafeAssign is a plagiarism prevention tool that allows your instructor to check the originality of a homework submission. SafeAssign automatically conducts the check by comparing your assignment against a database of other assignment submissions. -
TurnItIn: Preventing PlagiarismExplore resources to learn about the different forms of plagiarism, why students plagiarize, and more.
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How Do I Cite Generative AI in MLA Style?
If you need to cite an AI tool, check out MLA editors’ preliminary guidance. -
MLA Interactive Practice Template (Citation)
To build a works-cited-list entry, enter the elements present in your source into the template. You must include any necessary punctuation, capitalization, and italics. The entry will appear under “Your Citation,” color-coded to correspond to the template.
The template is a tool for teaching and learning MLA style, not a citation generator. To verify that your entry is correct, consult the MLA Handbook.