What is a Citation? | Why Cite? | How to Cite | Printable Guides
See our
Citing Sources guide for examples of citations in APA, MLA, and Turabian styles.
What is a Citation?
A citation is a method of documenting where an idea, a piece of information, or a quote in your paper came from. For instance:
| Citation within your paper: |
Medieval Europe was a place both of "raids, pillages, slaver, and extortion" and of "traveling merchants, monetary exchange, towns if not cities, and active markets in grain" (Townsend 10). |
| Corresponding reference at the end of your paper: |
Townsend, Robert M. The Medieval Village Economy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993. |
Why Cite?
When you cite your sources you give credit to those people whose ideas you used in your research. This means that even when you don't use a direct quotation from an author, you need to give them credit if you have used any of their ideas in your paper. Another reason to cite your sources is so that anyone reading your paper will have accurate references for future study. Failure to cite your sources constitutes plagiarism.
How to Cite
Different disciplines rely on different citation methods. Which should you use? Ask each of your teachers 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.
General Instructions for Citing
Citing sources you have used in your paper consists of two steps:
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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.
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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.
See our
Citing Sources guide for examples of citations in APA, MLA, and Turabian styles.
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