Quick Guide to Citing Sources
A citation is a way of documenting where an idea, a quote,
or a fact in your paper came from. This Quick Guide covers
three citation styles:
to give credit to those people whose ideas you used in
your research
so that anyone reading your paper will have accurate references
for future study
because failure to cite your sources constitutes plagiarism
How to Cite Your Sources: Different
disciplines rely on different citation methods.
Which should you use? Ask each of your instructors which style
they want you to use. If they have no preference, you can
use any or follow these guidelines:
APA: psychology, education,
and other social sciences. MLA: literature, arts, and humanities. Turabian: designed for college students to
use with all subjects. This style is particularly popular
with history scholars. Other Styles: the CBU
Writing Center has additional information on other citation
styles.
Citing sources you have used in your paper consists
of two steps:
Citing within the text of your paper with
either parenthetical references or footnotes. Here you provide
the exact page number for the passage you are citing, so that
anyone reading your paper can go back and find the same information
you found.
Providing a comprehensive list of all the works you have cited.
This is called a Works Cited Page, or a Bibliography, depending
on which citation style you are using. Items on this list
are ordered alphabetically by the author's last name.
