When you work on assignments for your classes, your instructors will require you to cite your sources. Generally, you should cite sources you use in your work:
Things you MUST cite: • Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium • Information you gain through interviewing or conversing with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in writing • When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase • When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials • When you reuse or repost any electronically-available media, including images, audio, video, or other media
Things you do not have to cite: • Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject • When you are writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments • When you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video, audio, etc. • When you are using "common knowledge," things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents) • When you are using generally-accepted facts, e.g., pollution is bad for the environment, including facts that are accepted within particular discourse communities, e.g., in the field of composition studies, "writing is a process" is a generally-accepted fact. |
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Citing your sources requires at least two things: in-text citations and a bibliography or reference list. The in-text citations provide a little information to the reader without taking up a lot of space on your page and lead the reader to a corresponding complete citation in your reference list or bibliography.
There are many styles of citations that all have different formats. However, they will all have a format for in-text citations and full citations for the reference list or bibliography. The most common ones are listed below; if you need to use a citation style not listed here, see our Citation Help Research Guide or contact a librarian for help.
Modern Languages Association (MLA) Format
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American Psychological Association (APA) Format
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Chicago (Turabian) Format
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Council of Science Editors (CSE) Format
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