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Citation Guide

About citing sources

It is unethical and illegal to use someone else's ideas or words without giving them credit. You should cite (to quote or give credit) the source. Use this guide to help you create citations for your academic work. 

First determine if your sources is a book, article, website, speech, newspaper article, blog, or something else?  Usually, your professor will ask you to use a certain style: APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, IEEE, etc.  

Ask a librarian if you have questions. We are here to help you. 

 

Why Citing is Important

It's important to cite sources you used in your research for several reasons:

  • To show your reader you've done proper research by listing sources you used to get your information
  • To be a responsible scholar by giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas
  • To avoid plagiarism by quoting words and ideas used by other authors
  • To allow your reader to track down the sources you used by citing them accurately in your paper by way of footnotes, a bibliography or reference list. (MIT LIbraries https://libguides.mit.edu/citing)

Official Style Manuals