Citations

Why is citing your sources important? 

Citing your sources protects you from breaking copyright laws and plagiarizing.  Copyright laws protect people's intellectual work (meaning music, books, and so on).  Consider how you would feel if you worked really hard to write a paper, create a work of art, or write a song and then someone stole your work and never credited you for it--that's what you are doing to someone else if you don't cite your sources.

There are three scenarios when you MUST use a citation:

1. Quote a source verbatim: Whenever you reproduce the exact words of another author, you must surround them with quotation marks (or, for longer quotations, use indenting to create a block quote).
2. Cite a distinctive idea: When you paraphrase an author's interpretation (i.e. present it in your own words), you should still acknowledge the source if you are paraphrasing an insight or analytical point rather than a straightforward matter of fact.
3. Cite facts that are not widely known or that might be contested: In some cases, even facts should be cited and attributed to a source. If a source provides you with information that you could not have readily found elsewhere, or that might be challenged, cite it, even if you paraphrase the author's words. This is especially important when the facts are controversial.

Citation Guides/Tools

• Purdue OWL is a well-known guide to creating citations for all kinds of sources.  Click on APA Style or MLA Style depending on what citation style your teacher asked for, and then select your source type from the list on the left hand side of the page.  Tip: Ask your librarian for help if you don't know what type of source you have.
• Knight Cite will create citations for you if you look up the title of a book or article, or enter the URL for a website.  HOWEVER, you should always double check if it created the citation correctly. This is brought to us by the Calvin College Library.
• MLA Citation Worksheet will help walk you through creating your citation!
• Sample Works Cited Page for a MLA cited paper. This is a good example of what you should try and accomplish with your Works Cited.
• The Gale Databases will include a citation for every resource available through them. Check "Citation Tools" on the righthand side of the screen, or look down at the bottom of the article.