Citation Guide

Why Cite?

• Give credit where credit is due. (It's the right thing to do.)
• Enhance the credibility of your argument with supporting evidence.
• Point out the dialog you are having with other scholars and their ideas.
• Provide your reader with additional sources for further reading.
• Avoid plagiarism: unfairly taking personal credit for other authors' ideas.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Correctly citing work is the means by which researchers and writers can avoid plagiarizing the work of others. If you have more questions about plagiarism, please visit our Plagiarism Research Guide. 

There are thousands of citation styles to choose from -- so how should you know which to select? Oftentimes, your instructor will assign one for you; other times, you may have the option to pick one for yourself based on the citation conventions in your field of study. Here are three of the most widely used citation styles:

• APA (American Psychological Association)
  • APA Style Homepage
• MLA (Modern Language Association)
  • The MLA Style Center
• Chicago Manual of Style
  • The Chicago Manual of Style Online

For more information on these citation styles, please select the corresponding links located in the left-hand column of this guide. For more information on other citation styles, visit the Citation Styles by Disciplines page.

To help you keep track of the sources you cite and create citations in the above mentioned styles as well as many others, you can use a citation management program, like one of the following!

• Zotero
• EndNote
• Mendeley

For more information on these programs and how to get started using them, please see the Citation Management Programs page of this guide.