Skip to Main Content

Cite Your Sources: Start

Citation Help

If you've ever struggled with formatting citations or knowing when or how to cite sources, you're not alone. The good news is that there are lots of people and resources on campus to help. Use the tabs (above) on this guide to navigate to specific style guides. Writing Center Assistants and Reference Librarians are ready and available to help. And you can also ask your professors for help, too!

Most databases and the library's catalog will cite sources for you. And you can also use tools like EasyBib. But please remember that machines, like humans, are never perfect. It's not uncommon for these tools to cite sources incorrectly. Even if you use these tools, you still need to go back and proof every citation to make sure it's correct. 

Available at the Reference Desk

Why Do We Need to Cite Sources?

There are at least three reasons why writers cite their sources:

  • To establish credibility with readers by calling on solid, reputable sources as "expert witnesses"
  • To provide readers with the information they need to delve further into the topic
  • To give credit where it's due and avoid plagiarism

When you are preparing a document,use this checklist to be sure your citations are complete.

  • Did I provide a reference for every idea that came from a source? Cite all of your sources, even if you put the information in your own words. You do not have to cite sources for "common knowledge" - factual information that can be found in multiple sources such as dates or widely-known information.
  • Do all of my in-text references have a complete citation in my list of sources and can the reader easily move from an in-text reference to the full citation in the list?
  • Does my reader have all the information needed to find each source? 

Because scholars in different disciplines emphasize different things when they read citations, there are many different styles. The MLA style, used for literary studies, makes sure page numbers are provided in an in-text citaiton because the exactness of a quotation matters; the APA style used in psychology and other social sciences include the year of publication, because when research was conducted is considered particularly significant. The Chicago Style is used by disciplines such as history and religion, which value sources so much it's common to put all the information about a source in a footnote as well as in a bibliography at the end of a paper.

Whatever style you use, citations typically include author, title of the work, and publication informaiton (for books, publisher and year published; for articles, the journal, volume, date, and page numbers; for websites, a URL is needed).

Librarians

Profile Photo
Reference Librarians
Contact:
507-933-7567

Writing Center Assistants

The Gustavus Writing Center is a fantastic resource that can support you at all stages of writing. There are multiple ways to connect with Writing Assistants, including virtual and in person.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License