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Citation Resources

MLA, APA, Chicago, Government Documents... Citing sources can be confusing until you get the hang of it. This guide is here to help.

Citation Resources

Citation Help is Here

It's not as hard as you think.

The thing to remember with citation is that it is simply a practice of creating a record of who said what, where, at what time. 

  • Who - author
  • What - the idea or quote you are citing
  • Where - the website, journal article, newspaper, video, book, etc.
  • At What Time - date of publication

Why bother? 

Citations highlight and acknowledge resources you read to arrive at your final product. We don't write in a vacuum; your readers want to read the resources you read, or respond. This is a facet of scholarly communication, and it is actually pretty interesting. Your writing has value, as do the resources you are citing. Your work increases in value by placing it in the context of other writing and research.

Citation Managers

Citation managers can be very helpful when dealing with both collecting citations and generating bibliographies. They aren't perfect, but they make those more complicated papers with lots of sources much more manageable -- if you know how to use them well. 

Citation Style

Depending on what discipline you are writing in (English? History? Biology?), you may use a different style of citation. The main styles are listed below, with links that take you to different pages within this guide. If you are citing a source published by the government, you will cite it using special consideration.

  • MLA style (Modern Language Association) - Humanities 
  • APA style (American Psychological Association) - Education, Psychology, and Business
  • Chicago/Turabian (Professor Turabian, University of Chicago) - Sociology, History and some of the Fine Arts

Many thanks to the librarians who created the citation research guide at Butler University for some of the ideas, resources, and language used in this guide. 

What Do I Need to Cite?

When Should I Cite?

You should cite when:

  • Referring to a source, stating someone else's opinions, thoughts, ideas, or research

  • Using an image or media file that you did not create

Don't worry about citing:

  • Your thoughts and your interpretations

  • Common knowledge​

When in doubt, cite it!

When Should I Cite? is adapted from Citation Guides by the Butler University Libraries under a CC BY 4.0 license.

Do I need to Cite?

"Do I Need to Cite?" flowchart. Text equivalent in caption
  • Is this your original idea or research?
    • If yes, then no need to cite!
    • If no, then go to the next step.
  • Is the information common knowledge?
    • If yes, then no need to cite!
    • If no, then cite it!
    • If not sure, then cite it just in case!

The flowchart "Do I Need to Cite?" is adapted from "To cite or not to cite?", a part of Exploring Academic Integrity in Your Research: A Tutorial, by Bronwen Maxson of the University of Oregon Libraries. It is adapted under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported license. The adapted chart was created by the University of Memphis Center for Writing & Communication and University Libraries and is shared under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 license.

Intentional and Unintentional Plagiarism

For more information and resources about plagiarism - intentional and unintentional: