TOPIC: How to Cite Sources with Styles

The primary reason to cite your sources is to avoid plagiarism and give proper credit to the original author or creator.  Other reasons for citing your sources:

• Enables a reader to locate the sources you cited.
• Demonstrates the accuracy and reliability of your information.
• Shows the amount of research you’ve done.
• Strengthens your work by lending outside support to your ideas.

Pull some ideas from this one!   https://guides.library.iit.edu/howtocite

What is a citation?       A citation....

• describes a book, journal article, website, or other published item
• gives credit to the originator of an idea, thus preventing plagiarism
• enables the reader to retrieve the item you refer to
• includes the author, title, source (publisher and place of publication or URL), and date

A citation manager is a tool which helps you to store, organize and output your citations in the format you prefer.

Citation Wisdom

There are currently many guides for learning citation styles for both print and electronic resources. Students should use the style guides generally accepted by their departments. You'll need to ask your professor which one he or she prefers. On this page, you will find guides to citing both print and electronic resources from a variety of venues. Kinlaw Library has many books and other resources that explain the citation process.  You should also seek help from the Center for Academic Excellence.

It is important that you are consistent throughout your paper in how the citations are presented and what information they include. Remember, the whole concept of citations is to help your reader identify and retrieve the same material you used and also to give proper credit to those who have come before you!

Always check with your instructor on what format specifications to use for a particular class or assignment, especially when citing electronic resources including material found in library databases.

Citation generators are NOT foolproof!

It is strongly recommend that you check your citations generated by these tools by reviewing the online APA or MLA style guides, our print citation style handbooks / manuals kept at the DCC Library, or ask a Librarian for help.

A citation reflects all of the information a person would need to locate a particular source. For example, basic citation information for a book consists of name(s) of author(s) or editor(s), title of book, name of publisher, place of publication, and most recent copyright date.

A citation style dictates the information necessary for a citation and how the information is ordered, as well as punctuation and other formatting.

A bibliography lists citations for all of the relevant resources a person consulted during his or her research.

In an annotated bibliography, each citation is followed by a brief note—or annotation—that describes and/or evaluates the source and the information found in it.

A works cited list presents citations for those sources referenced in a particular paper, presentation, or other composition.

An in-text citation consists of just enough information to correspond to a source's full citation in a Works Cited list. In-text citations often require a page number (or numbers) showing exactly where relevant information was found in the original source.