Citation Styles: Home

Why cite?

1. Give credit to the authors and acknowledging their ideas
2. Show that you have done research on the topic by consulting a variety of sources. This helps to add credibility to your writing
3. Provide evidence to your arguments
4. Allow the readers to locate the sources that you have used
5. Avoid charges of plagiarism

When to cite:

• Facts, figures, ideas, or other information that is not common knowledge
• When you directly quote from a source (book, article, websites etc.). Direct quotes are typically used when the author's original works are so well expressed that it will lose its essence/impact if rewritten in another way. Use quotation marks for direct quotes to distinguish it from your own writing. However, do use direct quotes sparingly as a report that is full of direct quotes reflects a lack of effort in ingesting the information and presenting it in your own style/words.
• Ideas that you have used from sources consulted, and rewriting using your own words

While you do not need to cite common knowledge, when in doubt of what is considered common knowledge, always cite to be safe. Typically, common knowledge refers to things like folklore, common sense observations, historical events and generally-accepted facts, e.g., smoking is bad for health.

1) Citing References in Text

 -Identifies the source for readers and allows them to locate the source of information in the reference list which is at the end of the article

-Every reference cited in text must have a corresponding reference in the reference list, and every reference that appears in the reference list must be cited in text.

2) Reference List (APA/Harvard)/Works Cited (MLA)

-Reference that appears in the end of the article. Typically contains information on author/editor, date of publication, title of publication/article, volume, issue, page number, doi or url where applicable. Order and way of presenting vary according to the citation style used.

-corresponds to the in-text citation