Citing your sources is a crucial element of any research paper or report. You must give proper credit to those whose ideas you used in your paper. Consistently and thoroughly citing your sources will help you avoid plagiarism. Accurate citation of your sources also allows readers to find your sources should they wish to learn more about the ideas in your paper.
There are many different styles of citation for academic papers. Different disciplines tend to prefer specific bibliographic styles. For example, MLA is typically used for English, APA for psychology and the social sciences, and Chicago for the humanities. Your teacher will tell you which style to use.
Bibliographic Styles
Citation Generators
Many electronic resources such as databases and electronic encyclopedias will prepare the citation for you. You can either save the citation or export it to one of many bibliography tools such as BibMe or EasyBib, listed below.
You can also use these citation creators for website, books, magazine or journal articles, podcasts, etc.
- BibMe - free automatic citation creator that supports MLA, APA, Chicago and Turabian formats
- EasyBib - free bibliography and citation maker
Google Docs Citation Tool
Google Docs now includes a citation tool which lets you add your citations into your document very easily. Go to Tools > Citations. Select the citation style you need (MLA, APA, or Chicago are available) then click + Add citation source. You have to enter your sources, there is no way to import from a citation creator. Once you have added a source, you can create an in-text citation, and eventually create your bibliography. Watch this short video for detailed instructions. (Thanks Ms. Medaglia!)
