Landman Library - Arcadia University

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Information on this website should not be construed as legal advice. Neither its creator nor Arcadia University are liable for any legal action that may result from its use.

Citing

Citation Styles

The key to citing (identifying) your sources is actually doing it. Basically, cite everything that is not your original idea whether it’s copyrighted or not. To not cite something, even something like a blog post on the Internet is plagiarism.

There are standard ways of citing your sources called “styles.” The style you use will depend upon your audience. It will usually be someone like a course professor who will dictate what style you should use for a paper you are writing or other work you are creating.

Two common citation styles are MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Psychological Association). MLA is common for writing in the liberal arts and humanities. APA is common for writing in the social sciences and some sciences. Some disciplines and even journals (e.g., JAMA: the Journal of the American Medical Association) have styles all their own. You can learn how to write your own citations by using the links under the headings below.

Citation Builders

You can find free online or application-based citation builders to help you create a citation automatically. One to consider using is NCSU’s (North Carolina State University). If you use Word 2007, you’ll also find a citation builder in the References tab. No citation builder is perfect, so the links below will still be useful for double checking.

MLA (Modern Language Association) Citation Style

A good online style guide to consider using is MLA Formatting and Style Guide from OWL (Online Writing Laboratory) at Purdue University. This guide covers many situations you’ll encounter in papers or projects you might produce.

APA (American Psychological Association) Citation Style

A good online style guide to consider using APA Formatting and Style Guide from OWL (Online Writing Laboratory) at Purdue University. This guide covers many situations you’ll encounter in papers or projects you might produce.