Your research is done and your paper is written. What else is left to do before you can turn in your assignment?

You still have to document the sources that you used. How do you do this? With CITATIONS!

In this lesson, you will learn:

• The basic bibliographic information required for any citation, regardless of style
• How important it is to provide accurate bibliographic information about your sources in bibliographies and works cited lists
• The common citation style formats of MLA, APA, and CSE

Why Is It Important That I Cite My Sources Accurately?

Citations are important because:

• They help others find the information that you used.
• They help establish the credibility of your own research.
• They connect your work to the work of other scholars.
• It is one way that scholars enter into a dialogue with each other.
• It is a way to honor and acknowledge the work of others who have made your own research possible.

What Is the Basic Bibliographic Information Required for a Book Citation?

Author

• Instead of an author, a book can have an editor, complier, or translator.
• There are rules for citing books that have a corporate author or no author at all.

Title of Book

Make sure to include subtitles of books as they appear on the title page.

Publisher

All publication information should be found on the title page.

Place of Publication

Make sure to retrieve publication information from the book itself and not from the library catalog or online database.

Date of Publication

If the date of publication is not on the title page, look through the first few pages of the book until you find it.

What Bibliographic Information is Required for a Book Chapter Citation?

You need the same bibliographic information as a book, but you MUST add the author, title and page numbers of the specific chapter you are citing.

What Is the Basic Bibliographic Information Required for a Journal Article Citation?

Author

There are rules for formatting for more than one author, a corporate author, or no author at all.

Title of Article

Make sure to find the title of the article on the first page of the article and not from the table of contents or the cover of the journal.

Title of Journal

The title of the journal is just as important as the title of the article when citing from scholarly journals. You need both!

Volume and Issue Number

you can find the volume and issue number on the title page, the front cover of the journal, or on the article itself.

Date of Publication

You can also find the year the journal was published on the title page, front cover of the journal, or on the article itself.

Page Numbers

Remember to include the page numbers of the entire article and not just the pages where you found the information you’re citing.

My Professor Says I Have To Use MLA Format For My Works Cited List. What Does That Mean?

There are many different formats for citing the sources you use in your research. Here are a few.

Format	Discipline
Modern Language Association (MLA)	Humanities
American Psychological Association (APA)	Social Science Education Business
Council of Science Editors (CSE)	Life Sciences Physical Sciences Mathematics

Regardless of which format you use, you must include the same basic bibliographic information when citing a source.

What If I’m Using An Electronic Copy Of A Book Or An Article?

Depending on which citation style you are using, you will need to differentiate between print and online copies. Each style has its own rules for formatting this information.

For example, you might need to include the online database where you retrieved the information. Including a URL of a journal or website can be appropriate for some citations. Many online sources now include a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for the text. A DOI is a unique identifier assigned to the online content in order to locate that content on the Internet.

URLs and DOIs are not enough for a citation. You still must include the basic bibliographic information when citing a source.

What If I Can’t Find An Author?

There are common situations where legitimate publications might not have an obvious author. Each style format has rules for citing materials with no author.

Corporate Author

Publications produced by government agencies or professional associations often have a corporate author.

Edited Volume

Edited works are most common with books

News Magazine Articles

Articles from sources like Time Magazine or Newsweek are written by journalists but often don’t include the author’s name.

Be cautious when you cannot find any author to cite. The sources you use should be from authors who are experts in their field.

This is great, but most of my sources are blogs, videos I found on YouTube, and public websites. How do I cite those?

A word to the wise—if your assignment requires you to use scholarly sources, and most of your information comes from blogs, YouTube videos, and websites, you need to Ask a Librarian how to find scholarly books and articles.

Information from those sources will impress your professor in a way that information from websites and YouTube won’t.

Are There Tools To Help Me With Citations?

There are lots of online citation making tools available. The library name for them is “bibliographic management software.” Some have to be downloaded to your computer or mobile device, while others have a web interface.

Bibliographic management software makes formatting citations easier, but you still have to use your brain and check to see that all of necessary information has been imported and formatted correctly.

Some examples include:

• Citation Machine
• Noodle Tools
• Zotero
• Turn it in

Remember, nothing replaces logical thinking. Always consult the format handbook for the rules.