Citing your work shows that you have:
- Completed quality research by listing the sources that you used to get your information.
- Are a responsible scholar by giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas.
- Provided a way for your reader to easily find the sources that have you used by citing them accurately in your paper using a bibliography, works cited page or reference list.
When to Cite Sources
When you are writing your research paper, any information you quote, summarize or paraphrase must be cited and documented. You must document all of your sources to avoid plagiarism.
General Format for Citing Sources
To properly document the sources used for your research, you need to include:
- In-text citations - use the parenthetical citation format throughout the body of your paper when you quote or paraphrase from researched information.
- References - include a list of full citations for the sources used in your paper at the very end, as a separate page.
