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Citing Your Work

Learn how to cite your work, and discover tool to help you write and cite most efficiently.

Citation Resources

Citation Help

The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue is a well-known resource for instructional material on writing, and research and citation. Material on numerous styles is available, including APA, AMA, Chicago, IEEE, and more.  

Citing Your Work

About Citing

Citing is the practice of acknowledging the sources used to prepare written works. Writers provide this acknowledgement by displaying citations in the body of a text and including complete references after the text.

Why we Cite
Preparation
Identifies sources used to present facts and prepare hypotheses, ideas, and arguments.
Attribution
Credits authors for their work. 
Confirmation
Allows the reader to follow and confirm the writer’s position; builds knowledge.
Plagiarism
Helps writers avoid plagiarism. 
What we Cite
Facts
Quotes
Summaries & Paraphrases
Figures & Images

General Rules

In-Text Citations 

  • In-text citations appear in the body of the paper as sources are referenced. 
  • In-text citations usually follow a number or author-date format. 
  • Generally, in-text citations are inserted at the end of sentences and paragraphs.

  • In some cases, the in-text citation must include a page number. 

Reference List

  • The reference list appears at the end of the paper.  
  • One complete reference for each source cited in the body of the paper should appear in the reference list.
  • The details required for each source depends on its format (e.g. article or book).
  • The style determines whether the reference list is arranged numerically, alphabetically, or in some other way.