What is citing information

Direct quotations should be surrounded by quotations marks and are generally used when the idea you want to capture is best expressed by the source. Paraphrasing and summarizing involve rewording an essential idea from someone else's work, usually to either condense the point or to make it better fit your writing style. You do not have to cite your own ideas, unless they have been published. And you do not have to cite common knowledge , or information that most people in your audience would know without having to look it up.

In MLA and APA styles, in-text citations usually appear as parenthetical notes sometimes called parenthetical documentation. They are called parenthetical notes because brief information about the source, usually the author's name, year of publication, and page number, is enclosed in parentheses as follows:. In MLA and APA styles, in-text citations are associated with end-of-paper citations that provide full details about an information source.

Note: Different source types and situations require different information within the parentheses. Refer to a style guide for the style you are using for details. In Chicago and CSE styles, in-text citations usually appear as superscript numerals, or note numbers , as follows:.

These note numbers are associated with full citations that can appear as footnotes bottom of page , endnotes end of chapter or paper , or lists of cited references at the end of the paper. End-of-paper citations, as well as footnotes and endnotes, include full details about a source of information. Citations contain different pieces of identifying information about your source depending on what type of source it is. In academic research, your sources will most commonly be articles from scholarly journals, and the citation for an article typically includes:.

There are many other types of sources you might use, including books, book chapters, films, song lyrics, musical scores, interviews, e-mails, blog entries, art works, lectures, websites and more.

To determine which details are required for a citation for a particular source type, find that source type within the style guide for the citation style you are using. It also gives your readers the information necessary to find that source again, including:. Giving credit to the original author by citing sources is the only way to use other people's work without plagiarizing.

But there are a number of other reasons to cite sources:. Not at all. On the contrary, citing sources actually helps your reader distinguish your ideas from those of your sources. Citing a source means that you show, within the body of your text, that you took words, ideas, figures, images, etc.

Citations are a short way to uniquely identify a published work e. They are found in bibliographies and reference lists and are also collected in article and book databases. Citations consist of standard elements, and contain all the information necessary to identify and track down publications, including:.

Citations may look different, depending on what is being cited and which style was used to create them. Choose an appropriate style guide for your needs. Here is an example of an article citation using four different citation styles. Notice the common elements as mentioned above:. Author - R. Source Title - Science. Volume and issue - Vol , issue Publication Date - Page numbers - Langer, R.