Research requires references. You are building your work on the work of others, and therefore must keep track of the resources you have consulted while doing a project so that you can cite them properly (give the original authors credit).
The library's Citing Sources Guide is an online research guide created to help you avoid plagiarism, understand citations, and use the most common citation styles correctly.
In general, you must cite the source when you:
While you are doing research, be sure to document each source thoroughly, noting the author, title, journal title if your source is an article, publisher, place of publication, date, and page numbers. For electronic materials, you should also note the DOI number (Digital Object Identifier) if available. Note the URL of any website you consult; depending on the source, you may need it for reference.
Do you know the parts of a citation? Can you recognize them even when a citation is in an unfamiliar style? Can you identify whether a given citation is for a book, book chapter, or journal article? This short video from North Carolina State University Libraries will help you master the basics of citations.
Bibliographic/Citation Generators
Use these tools, but do so wisely! Many library databases will do at least some of the work of formatting citations for you. PLEASE BE AWARE that at times the citations are NOT presented in the correct format. There are often errors in capitalization and in the elements included. If you copy and paste this citation information into your paper, you MUST double-check the formatting with the appropriate citation style guide or the appropriate citation manual. The same goes for tools like EasyBib. The resulting product is only as good as the information that is provided AND there can still be errors.
Example from EasyBib in MLA:
Dieden, Sten, and Björn Gustafsson. “Child poverty in South Africa: An assessment based on Microdata for
1995.” International Journal of Social Welfare, vol. 12, no. 4, Oct. 2003, pp. 326–338, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-
9671.00287.
The article title capitalization is incorrect and the "container" (database name) is missing!
It should look like this:
Dieden, Sten, and Björn Gustafsson. “Child Poverty in South Africa: An Assessment Based on Microdata for
1995.” International Journal of Social Welfare, vol. 12, no. 4, Oct. 2003, pp. 326–38.
EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9671.00287.
Free Citation/Bibliographic Generators:
Citation Builder from North Carolina State University Libraries
KnightCite from the Hekman Library at Calvin College
Remember: ALWAYS double-check your references for proper formatting and information before submitting your work. The citation generators are not perfect!
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