Introduction to Citations

As we’ve already established, citations are a crucial part of participating in the scholarly conversation. By now, you’ve seen multiple examples of citations for various types of sources as part of the reading for this class (books, journal articles, videos, etc.).

If you do not cite your sources properly, it can appear as though you are claiming someone else’s work is your own. This is called plagiarism, an extremely serious academic infraction. Therefore, we ask you to give your full attention to creating your citations, both for this class and others. Giving your best attempt at a well-formatted citation is preferred to not attempting the citation at all.

For our students who are experienced with creating citations, we hope this chapter will be a helpful refresher for you. For those of you who are brand new to citations, please give careful attention and reach out to your librarians for assistance if needed. We know citations can be tricky, and we want to help you.

For a overview of why we cite and how to format citations, please watch the video below (run time 4:44):

Citation Tips

• Recommended steps for manually creating citations:
  • 1) Identify the type of source you are citing.
  • 2) Identify the citation style required for your assignment.
  • 3) Search the citation style guidance for instructions on creating a citation for your source type (e.g., journal article or newspaper article).
  • 4) Follow the provided template and plug in each piece of information in the correct spot.
  • 5) Make sure to format each part of the citation exactly how you see it in the template. For example, if the journal name is italicized in the template, it should be italicized in your citation too. If there are parentheses around the date in the template, include the parentheses in your citation.
• It is okay to use citation generators through the library or online (e.g., EasyBib) if you double check the result against the official style instructions. Citation generators can often make small mistakes.
• When in doubt, reach out to the library in person or online.

Citations For This Class

We recommend using APA style for this class. You can find the full APA style guide at the library front desk. Or, you can use shorter guidance you can find for free online. We recommend the Purdue OWL website.