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Citation Guide

Why cite sources?

You get your research assignment from your professor and they require that you cite your sources. Maybe they want you to use APA or MLA, or some other style like Chicago, AMA, or ASA. What does this really mean? 

Citing yours sources...

  • Adds to your credibility and supports your ideas!
  • Helps your reader find the sources you reference to read for themselves
  • Ensures the accuracy of scientific and scholarly knowledge
  • Protects and acknowledges intellectual property rights

When should you cite? 

  • Direct Quotations: When you use the author’s exact words
  • Paraphrasing: When you summarize someone else’s words or ideas
  • Facts: When you mention something that is not common knowledge
  • Images: When you use pictures, charts, and graphics that someone else created in a presentation 

This guide was reused with permission and adapted to meet the needs of the Dale P. Latimer Library. 

Creative Commons License CC by NC 4.0 This guide was originally created by Tessa Withorn, Carolyn Caffrey, Maggie Clarke, and Jillian Holt Eslami at CSUDH Library and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.