Writing 10 (Trook): Citing Sources

Citing your sources is important because:

• Giving credit (attribution) to original authors helps you avoid plagiarizing
• Citations allow your readers to find your sources
• Citations add credibility to your arguments
• Your professors expect it as part of standard academic discourse

Different citation formats are used by different academic disciplines.  Professors will often require a particular format, but if they have no preference these guidelines may be helpful:

• APA - psychology, education, and other social sciences
• MLA - literature, arts, and humanities
• Turabian - also used often in literature, history, and the arts
• Chicago - used with all subjects in the "real world" by books, magazines, newspapers and other non-scholarly publications

RefWorks is an online tool that helps you manage, store, format and cite resources used in the research process.