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Cite Your Sources: Home

This page has lots of resources to help you create citations for your research assignments.

Cite Your Sources

Doing research presents a real organizational challenge:

  • You have to keep track of all the sources from which you have borrowed ideas, facts, opinions, or quotations, and...
  • You have to create a formal list, called a "Works Cited" page, of all of the sources you used in your paper for your reader.
  • You have to also provide in-text citations referring to works of others in your text. 

Example: Print sources with named author

For print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal articles, and newspapers, provide a signal word or phrase (usually the author’s last name) and a page number. If you provide the signal word/phrase in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.

Human beings have been described by Kenneth Burke as "symbol-using animals" (3).

Human beings have been described as "symbol-using animals" (Burke 3).

Here is how the source would appear in the Works Cited:

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method. University of California Press, 1966.

IF YOU KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING AS YOU USE IT, IT WILL SAVE YOU LOADS OF TIME LATER!

Tips for keeping track of sources:

  • Make citations as you go using NoodleTools (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)
  • Add links and titles to a Word doc
  • Create a folder in your browser bookmarks for each assignment and save as you go.
  • Use browser extensions like Diigo or Wakelet to keep track of websites
  • Keep a running list of sources in a document in OneDrive
  • All of the above

Dos and Don'ts

DO:

-keep track of your sources as you go along

-use NoodleTools to create citations and SAVE YOUR WORK!

-use MLA consistently (make all your citations looks the same)

-export a Bibliography to MS Word (let NoodleTools do the formatting for you!)

DON'T:

-list a URL as a citation. URLs change all the time. Your reader might not be able to find it.

-create citations on your own. There is too much room for error.

-copy and paste citations one-at-a-time. You will lose consistency!

Why Do We Cite?

We cite sources for several reasons:

  • to impress our teachers by showing the awesome research we've done
  • to prove that we haven't just made stuff up (like facts or statistics)
  • to prove our opinions or ideas are awesome (who will disagree with you if your information is published by NASA?)
  • to give credit to the authors you may have borrowed ideas or words from
  • to PROTECT yourself from accusations of plagiarism!
  • to help readers who want to know more find your sources

It's also just what people in schools and universities do to show they are using information ethically. When you get your driver's license, you will follow the rules, right? You will agree not to run a red light. Well, when you are a student, this is just what you do. It's part of the rules. 

Free citation generators

You can make citations on these free websites. Be sure to enter all the information correctly. And make an account so you can save your work and come back to it later.

Useful Websites

Free Plagiarism Checkers