Information Literacy 1 Tutorials

A citation is the documentation you provide so your readers or audience know where you got specific ideas or information. You need to include enough documentation about each source so that a reader can find these sources on their own. (This means that, in academic writing, we need to include more than just the link!)

In academic assignments, you'll usually incorporate this information as in-text citations (or hyperlinks on web sources), footnotes, or endnotes. You'll also be expected to compile a list of citations for the sources you've used at the end of a research paper or other assignment. Depending on the citation style you use, this list is called a "Bibliography," "Works Cited," or "References" page. 

Citation styles provide guidelines that help you present citation information with consistent formatting and punctuation. Your instructor may ask you to use a particular citation style, such as MLA, APA, or Chicago. (Different disciplines use different citation styles, so check with your instructor to see if there is a style you should use in their class.) If you need to look up guidelines for a particular citation style, our Citation Help page can direct you to various print and online style manuals. We especially recommend the Purdue OWL website's helpful guidelines and examples. 

When Should I Cite?

You should acknowledge the sources you used whenever your work is based on someone else's ideas or content. (When in doubt, cite!) This is true not only when you use direct quotations, but also when you are paraphrasing or summarizing someone else's work: 

• Quote: When you reuse, word-for-word, phrases or sentences as they appear in another source. Use quotation marks or set quotes off using block quotations.
• Paraphrase: When you communicate an idea from another source but rephrase it so it's not a direct quote.
• Summarize: When you provide a brief version of what you learned from a source. 

Why Should I Cite?

Citing your sources is a fundamental research skill and a crucial step in avoiding plagiarism. Citing your sources also helps demonstrate that you understand the scholarly conversations and conventions within your discipline. By including citations, you:

• Acknowledge and credit the work that has helped influence your thinking or informed your research
• Provide evidence to back up and strengthen your arguments
• Enable your audience to track down and examine the sources you used for themselves and deepen their own understanding

Watch the following video for a short introduction to citation:

North Carolina State University Libraries. “Citation: A (Very) Brief Introduction.” YouTube, uploaded by libncsu, 23 July 2014. Licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY-NC-SA US license. (0:54) 

What Parts Do I Cite? 

Each citation needs to include a source's set of bibliographic elements, or specific categories of information for things like an author's name, a work's title, or a journal article's publisher. Different citation styles have slightly different rules about how to document these elements (for example, whether to list an author's full name or just last name and initials), but the basic bibliographic elements you need to include within a citation stay the same across citation styles. 

Common Bibliographic Elements: These categories of information go into most citations. (Certain types of sources will not need to include all of these bibliographic elements, though. For example, print books probably don't have a DOI or URL, web content may not have formal publication or pagination information, and you may need to treat the content publisher as the creator, too, if a named author isn't listed.)

• Creator: Author(s), editor(s), composer(s), translator(s), or other individuals or groups who made a creative contribution to the work.
• Title: The FULL title of a work (i.e., a work's title and, if it has one, subtitle, or everything before and after a colon).
• Publisher: The name of the organization, company, or group that published or posted the work.
• Place of Publication: The place where the work was originally published (typically the name of a city). 
• Year of Publication: The year when the work was published. 
• Pagination: The specific page number(s) where the information or ideas in question came from within a work.
• Online Location (choose one):
  • URL: The web address for a specific online webpage where the information source was found.
  • DOI (Digital Object Identifier): A string of numbers, letters, and symbols used to permanently identify an article or document and link to it on the web. 

Below are examples of where you can find the bibliographic elements of citations in common types of sources you might use in your research. It is important to be aware that different publications will put the information in different places! Look at the PDF examples to get a better idea of where to look in your sources to find key bibliographic elements.

Books and eBooks

If you are looking at the record details for a print book or eBook in the library catalog:

• Title information is always found at the top of the record page.
• Many other bibliographic elements are provided in the top section of the record, including Creator (Author and/or Editor), Publisher, Place of Publication, and Publication Year information. You may need to scroll down and click on the View Description heading to view all of the details.

If you are looking at the actual print book or eBook:

• The title page near the start of the book includes the bibliographic elements for Title, Creator, and Publisher.
• The copyright page (or "verso page," which is on the other side of the title page in print books or is the page immediately after the title page in eBooks) is where you can find Publisher, Place of Publication, Publication Year, and Edition information.

These bibliographic elements are highlighted in the example of a book's title page and copyright pages below.

In an edited book with multiple authors, be sure check the table of contents for the Author, Chapter Title, and Pagination (page numbers) of the chapter. The book editor or editors will usually be on the book's title page instead of authors. 

In the PDF example of an edited book below, these bibliographic elements are highlighted on the title, verso, and table of contents pages. 

Articles from a Database

Bibliographic elements of a journal article will appear in different locations according to the journal in which the article was published and/or the database in which you found the article. 

In EBSCO databases, such as Academic Search Premier, most bibliographic elements will be listed on the article record page you see when you first click on a title from the results list. In the example article record below, find the Article Title, Authors, Journal Title, Journal Volume and Issue, Publication Date, and Pagination (pages in the journal where the article is). 

Bibliographic elements can also be found in the full text article PDF, usually along the top or bottom of the page. Where exactly the information will be located on the pages is the choice of the publisher, so pay careful attention to the margins of your article.

In the example below, the bibliographic elements for the journal volume and issue numbers and the publication year are at the top of the first page of the article. The first page also has the article title and the authors. On the second page the bibliographic elements for journal title, publication year, journal volume and issue numbers, and pagination are in the top left margin.

Bibliographic elements are essential to identify before assembling them into a citation following the format of a specific style.

Creating Citations Manually

Creating citations on your own, where you identify the bibliographic elements information for your source and then organize and format these elements using a particular citation style, is your most time- and labor-intensive option, but it helps you practice finding and organizing specific bibliographic elements. 

Citation Generators

The library catalog, many library databases, and resources like Google Scholar have built-in citation generators. These citation generators create a citation for a source in the citation style of your choice. Note that computer-generated citations may contain errors. If your instructor expects you to turn in very accurate and precise citations, check any generated citations against a style guide to make sure they don't include any formatting errors.

Citation generators appear in different locations on different platforms - ask a librarian if you are having trouble finding one! 

• In the library catalog: Look for the Cite button in the record for your source. It's often in the upper right-hand corner of the record listing. When you click on the Cite button, a pop-up box will let you select a citation style before it generates a citation for you to copy and paste into your draft bibliography.
• In Academic Search Premier or other EBSCO databases: Article records include a Cite option at the top right corner of the page. The Cite button displays a pop-up window listing computer-generated citations for the article in several citation styles. Scroll through the list to find the style you want and then copy and paste the citation into your draft bibliography.

Citation Managers (Zotero)

Zotero or other citation managers help you save, organize, and format your citations in one place. Citation managers are especially useful if you're using lots of sources for a big assignment or you want to track or manage citations for several assignments. Review our Zotero tutorial for detailed installation and setup instructions.  

As described in the CSB and SJU Academic Catalog, plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty involving "the act of using ideas, words, or work from another source (including content creating tools) and presenting it as one's own without giving credit to the source creator(s)." Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional:

• Intentional plagiarism is when you knowingly try to pass off someone's else's work as your own.
• Unintentional plagiarism is when you accidentally plagiarize, often because you are unsure of when or how things need to be cited.

You can face negative consequences in college for plagiarism, even if the plagiarism was unintentional, so make sure you understand your instructors' expectations. (And when in doubt, cite!) Sources that you should cite as "works of original expression" include a variety of online content (e.g., social media posts, blogs, website content), books, articles, news, speeches and interviews, video clips, and creative works like movies, musical compositions, poetry, illustrations, and protected pieces of art.