Citing sources

• gives credit to the ideas, words and works of others
• gives your readers the information necessary to find your sources
• allows you to avoid plagiarism

The purpose of citing your sources is to provide your reader with the information they need in order to find and read the sources themselves. The most common citation styles you will encounter are: MLA (humanities), Chicago/Turabian, APA, ACE/CSE. 

Regardless of the citation style or type of resource, the elements in a citation always include author name, title of the work, and date of publication.

Book citations include publisher name and location. Journal, magazine, and newspaper articles include the journal, magazine, or newspaper title, volume and page number, and date; and online sources often include the URL where the document is located and the date the item was retrieved and/or a DOI (digital object identifier).

For more further resources to help you cite print and electronic materials in your work, please visit the "Citing Sources" page.