Citing Sources

Footnotes and bibliographic citations credit the author and enable the reader to locate source material. As you compile and cite references, be sure to observe a consistent style -- that is, don't mix APA-style citations with MLA-style references.

Complete citations to online or electronic resources are also required in the same manner as for printed sources.

Be sure to check your syllabus or ask your professor which style guide is appropriate and/or required for your paper.

You get your research assignment from your professor and they require that you cite your sources. Maybe they want you to use APA or MLA, or some other style like Chicago, AMA, or ASA. What does this really mean? 

Citing yours sources...

• Adds to your credibility and supports your ideas!
• Helps your reader find the sources you reference to read for themselves
• Ensures the accuracy of scientific and scholarly knowledge
• Protects and acknowledges intellectual property rights
• Avoids plagiarism!

Plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s ideas, concepts, words, images, music, etc. as if they were your own, without giving proper credit; it is intellectual theft. When you approach writing your paper with the notion that you want to avoid plagiarism, you are not only doing the right thing, but you are also engaged in the intellectual work that is required when you describe, analyze, synthesize, and draw new conclusions about your topic. When you work to avoid plagiarism you work to set your own ideas upon, next to, or in opposition to, those scholars whose work came before yours.

You should cite if you are using:

• Direct Quotations: When you use the author’s exact words
• Paraphrasing: When you summarize someone else’s words or ideas
• Facts: When you mention something that is not common knowledge
• Images: When you use pictures, charts, and graphics that someone else created in a presentation
• Dialog: When you use quotations from conversations, personal correspondence, or interviews
• Anything else that is not your own

You do not have to cite commonly accepted facts. One rule of thumb for commonly accepted facts are those that can be found in five reference sources. It is often difficult to know what commonly accepted facts are, so when in doubt, it is best to provide a citation for them.

View our plagiarism handout (pdf) for more information on avoiding plagiarism.