Why Cite Sources?

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 or Vancouver. What does this really mean?

Citing your 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

When should you cite?

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

Citing Styles

Citation Styles

All academic disciplines use citations, but, they don't all make them the same way. Different citation styles have basically the same information in them, but different disciplines care about different things or use certain materials more frequently.

Three of the most commonly used citations styles are...

1. MLA: Used in English and other Humanities classes

2. APA: Used in the Natural, Health, and Social Sciences

3. Chicago/Turbian: Used in History and Journalism

Check out the different citation styles below! Each piece of the citation uses the same color to illustrate that citations are different ways of organizes and formatting the same pieces.

Author: Roberto G. Gonzales, Nando Sigona, Edelina M. Burciaga, Kara Cebulko, and Alexis Silver

Title: Navigating DACA in Hospitable and Hostile States

Journal: American Behavioral Scientist

Volume and Issue numbers: Volume 60 Issue 13

Publication Year: 2016

Page numbers: 1553-1574

APA:

Gonzales, Roberto G, Sigona, Nando, Burciaga, Edelina M., Cebulko, Kara, & Silver, Alexis. (2016). Navigating DACA in Hospitable and Hostile States. American Behavioral Scientist, 60(13), 1553-1574.

Chicago:

Gonzales, Roberto G, Sigona, Nando, Burciaga, Edelina M., Cebulko, Kara, and Silver, Alexis. "Navigating DACA in Hospitable and Hostile States." American Behavioral Scientist 60, no. 13 (2016): 1553-574.

MLA:

Gonzales, Roberto G, et al. “Navigating DACA in Hospitable and Hostile States.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 60, no. 13, 2016, pp. 1553–1574.