What is a citation?
A citation gives the source of information. When you write a report or research paper it is important both to give credit to the original sources of the information you use and to allow your readers to know how to find the information. Different disciplines use different styles for referencing sources. At SLCC, the two most commonly used styles are MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Psychological Association). Citations can take the form of footnotes or endnotes and are often included in the text in parentheses. A style guide will tell you which way to do it. Usually, you will also need to include a bibliography or a list of works cited at the end of your paper. This is simply a list of all of the sources you have already listed in your notes.
Books on how to do citations at SLCC:
- MLA
- MLA handbook for writers of research papers
- APA
- Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
- Other Styles
- The ACS Style Guide: Effective Communication of Scientific Information.
- Doing Honest Work in College: How To Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism, And Achieve Real Academic Success.
- A Short Guide to Writing About Biology
Web Sites for Additional Information:
The Oxford Style Manual
Websites with citation guides
AP Stylebook
Citation Software:
These programs are designed to help you create citations and works cited lists without having to do all of the careful typing and formatting by hand. The first four are free to users but you will need to set up an account so that the software can create and maintain your personal lists. The last item in the list is one that the SLCC Library is considering purchasing. It is more powerful and adaptable than the other programs.
- Citation Machine
Citation Machine is an interactive web tool designed to assist high school, college, universities, teachers, and independent researchers in their effort to respect other people's intellectual properties. To use Citation Machine, simply…- Click the citation format you need and then the type of resource you wish to cite
- Complete the Web form that appears with information from your source
- Click “Make Citations” to generate standard bibliographic and in-text citations.
- Zotero
A free Firefox extension to help you collect, manage and cite your research sources. You can save and share citations, full texts, web pages, images and other objects. You can also export your information as formatted references in several popular styles including MLA and APA. - RefWorks
RefWorks allows users to create personal databases and use them for a variety of research activities. References are quickly and easily imported from text files or online databases. The databases can then be used to manage, store and share the information. Users can automatically insert references from their database into their papers and generate formatted bibliographies and manuscripts in seconds.