What are Citations?

Citations 

This page provides reading material that explains the importance of citations in academic and professional writing. You’ll learn when and why to cite sources, explore the APA style, and discover tools that can help you format citations correctly. Understanding how to credit your sources properly helps you avoid plagiarism and build credibility in your research. This reading material will allow you to complete the Database Navigation Assignment and Digital Skills Quiz.

What are Citations? 

Citations are made up of information -- more specifically, bibliographic information!

Citations include information about a source -- such as the author, the title, the date, the publisher, the city of the publisher, the page number, etc. of the source you are using.

Most Commonly Used Citation Styles

There are many different styles of citations, but at most colleges, it is generally APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association) styles that are used. Most academic papers used APA style.

Each one of these styles has its own set of rules and formatting and looks just a little bit different. However, the same bits and pieces of information need to be collected for each -- author, title, publisher, page, etc. - information that can help your reader find the source you have used. 

Before we go into more detail about what citations are and what they look like, let's talk about why we create citations. 

Why Do We Create Citations? 

Let's start by watching short video about why we create citations:

Therefore, we create citations for multiple reasons, including:

• Avoid Plagiarizing: You must cite any direct quotation, summary, or paraphrase of any idea or fact from your research. Citing sources is giving credit to the original author and publication where you found the information. Not citing sources is plagiarism and you may be subject to academic discipline.
• Lend Authority to Your Paper: By referencing the work of scholars and other professionals, you demonstrate that your own research is based on solid, reliable information and that you are capable of critical thinking by being able to synthesize that research into your own.
• Provide a Path: By citing sources, you provide the information readers of your paper need in order to locate the same sources that you did. 
• Acknowledge Other's Work: Part of your research is built upon the research of other people. It is respectful and fair to give them credit for their hard work (just as you would hope others would give you credit if they were quoting your work!)

Now let's take a closer look

The most important thing you need to know right off the bat is that there are always TWO PARTS to a citation:

1. An in-text citation: These are the shorter citations that appear "in the text" of your essay. These are sometimes called parenthetical citations because they can appear inside of parentheses. For example: (Smith, 2014, p. 12) or (Smith 4) would come at the end of a sentence where you paraphrased or used a direct quote. 
2. A full, end-text citation: These are the longer, complete citations that appear at the end of your essay. Depending on the style of citation (discussed below), these citations, when combined together in a list on a page at the very end of your essay, are often called the Reference page or Works Cited page. And a bibliography is nothing but an organized list of full citations.

Two essential parts of a citation

Take a moment to look at the image below, which shows the relationship between the two essential parts of a citation.

How the two parts of a citation work together

Watch the following video to learn more about in-text citations in APA style.

Summing Up

In sum: end-text citations work hand-in-hand with the in-text citations.

Citations can be very confusing and a bit tedious. But we use citations because we want to give credit to the authors and sources of our information, and we want to avoid plagiarism. Learning what kinds of information go into a citation is worth it!  

Citing the Source in Two Places

Regardless of the style you use (and usually your teacher will tell you which to use), remember that there are always two places where you need to cite the source: 

1. At the end of the paper in a Works Cited (MLA) or in a Reference list (APA) 
2. Inside the paper (this is called in-text or parenthetical citations).

If you don't include both elements of a citation in your essay, there's a good chance that you're plagiarizing. And whether it's intentional or unintentional, it's still plagiarism. To "cite" means "to point to the evidence" -- so just remember the purpose of in-text citations (as well as the longer citations at the end of your paper) is to simply refer back to a certain piece of information and give readers more information about the origins of a source.

Putting Citations in Context

Citations are situational! Meaning, each citation will be and look different based on what sources you're using! While most citations require the same kinds of information (the who, what, when, where info that tells readers who the author is, what the source is, when/where it was written/published, etc.), the way that information is ordered or formatted will look different based on the citation style you use (MLA or APA) and the type of information you are citing.

A citation for a print book will look a bit different than a citation for a government website or a video, etc. Trying to memorize citation styles isn't the best way to learn them. Practice, practice, practice -- and a copy of a citation guide -- is key! Purdue Online Writing Lab or Purdue OWL is an online guide that walks you through citations. In the “Additional Resources” section below, there are a few links to great websites where you can get help when it comes to citations and references.

Two More Important Things to Note

On your Works Cited (MLA) or References (APA) page -- that is, the page at the end of your paper that includes the list of full citations that your in-text citations point to -- the citations must always:

• Be organized in alphabetical order -- So an article written by Jones will come before a book written by Smith.
• Have hanging indents - -meaning, the second (and any number of lines that follow the first line), must be indented. Simply hitting Tab or 'enter' in Word won't create this indent. Don't know how to create a hanging indent? Check this link to learn how create a hanging indent.

References List Entry

List the complete citation information for the source listed in your in-text citation in the References list at the end of your paper.

Formatting References

Author's last name, First initial. (Publication year). Article title in sentence case: Subtitles are also in sentence case. Journal Title in Title Case, Volume#(Issue#), page range. DOI or "Retrieved from" statement.

Example with DOI

Jones, H. (1998). Why citation styles are challenging for students: A review of the literature. Journal of Education, 88(2), 199-201. doi: 10.1093/sf/77.1.123

Example without DOI

Jones, H. (1998). Why citation styles are challenging for students: A review of the literature. Journal of Education, 88(2), 199-201. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/journalofeducation/

NOTE: Databases will provide you with the DOI for an article if there is one (and not all articles have a DOI). These are also generally provided on the first page of the article itself. When there isn't a DOI, simply Google the name of the journal from which the article comes and copy and paste the URL for the home page of the journal's Web site.

Additional Help:

The following is a link to the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University. Use the menu on the left to find examples for how to do both in-text citations and References entries organized by type of resource (articles, books, electronic sources, etc.): OWL. This resource also contains a sample paper demonstrating in-text citations and paper layout.

APA Style Help:

• APA Citation Guide, Purdue OWL

The following are links to PDF handouts for more help with references from APA website:

• Common Reference Examples Guide
• Reference Quick Guide

Attributions:

 This content was adapted from a resource on Canvas Commons “Introduction to Research” by Tacoma Community College Library is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.