Skip to Main Content

Using Sources: Citing Sources

This research guide provides a brief introduction to citing sources.

Why Cite?

Why care about citations?

Citations, and citation styles, allow the reader to understand where you got the information in your paper.  Citations show how you chose to incorporate that information into your writing about a topic.

They are the equivalent to showing your work when performing a mathematical or scientific equation. Citations show how you arrived at a particular conclusion or argument through building a body of evidence and examples in your research process.

Citations are meant to give a path to show how you approached your research question and gathered the sources, ideas and support for the argument advanced by your paper. 

Citation styles may seem difficult to master at first, but with some practice, you will soon begin to master the citation style(s) of your discipline. Also there are many citation tools, such as the "Cite" button available in many of the library's databases, to assist you in the citation process. The Citation Resources tab of this guide includes a link to RefWorks Citation Manager which is available for free to LU students.

A Brief Introduction to Citation Styles

APA stands for American Psychological Association and is most commonly used in social sciences such as Business, Nursing, and Psychology.​

In-text citations

  • In-text citations gives credit to any resources or words that are not your own used within a sentence.
  • When using APA format, your in-text citation should follow the author-year model, for example (Smith, 2012). The author-year model always appears at the end of the sentence in parentheses.
  • If you cite the author within the sentence, you only need to include the publication year of the source.

Reference List

  • All sources mentioned in the paper must appear on the reference page and should be listed alphabetically by author's last name.
  • Most databases will have a citation generator within it. An example is the Cite button on the article summary page on the EBSCO database here. You will find similar options in most of the library's databases. Make sure to check the citation for proper formatting before adding to your paper.
  • Follow the examples below for general guidelines on how to cite:

o   Print books: Author’s last name, First Initial. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capitalize first letter of the word after the colon and italicize. Publisher.

o   Article from a database: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number, page range. Retrieved from http://www.someaddress.com/full/url/

o   Article on a website: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of document. Retrieved from http://www.someaddress.com/full/url/

Additional Resources

To see the format for individual references (e.g., books, journal articles, etc.) please see the APA Handbook, 7th edition or view the library’s APA Guide here: http://libguides.liberty.edu/APAguide 

Writing Center APA Style Guide: https://www.liberty.edu/academics/casas/academicsuccess/index.cfm?PID=11960

The Writing Center also provides samples, in APA style, of an undergraduate paper and a graduate paper .

MLA Style is a citation style published by the Modern Language Association of America (MLA).  It is commonly used in academic writing in liberal arts and humanities disciplines.  MLA Style employs both in-text citations and a Works Cited section for references.

In-Text Citations

  • Use in-text citations to show when you are citing someone else either by directly quoting them or paraphrasing them. The in-text citation will show the reader which item on your Works Cited page is being cited. In-text citations include the author’s last name and the page number of the material, all in parentheses at the end of the sentence.

 

  • See examples below for general guidelines on how to cite:
  • When directly quoting a source, be sure to include quotation marks around the quoted passage
    • Direct Quote: "When you write your research paper, remember that you must document everything that you borrow—not only direct quotations and paraphrases but also information and ideas” (MLA Handbook 55).
       
  • When paraphrasing a source, be sure the entirety of the paraphrased information is in your own words and that you do not mistakenly use even part of a direct quote without acknowledging it as a quote.
     
    • Paraphrase:  The MLA Handbook suggests that you can avoid unintentional plagiarism by clearly delineating exact quotes within your research notes so that when you write your paper you do not mistakenly pass off a quoted phrase as a paraphrased line (55).

Quoted and paraphrased material taken from the MLA Handbook, 8th ed.

 

Works Cited

  • MLA uses a "Works Cited" page to list any references that you cited in the body of the paper in the Works Cited page.
  • Do not include references in the Works Cited page that you did not either quote or paraphrase in the body of your paper. If you looked at a source but did not cite it in your paper, it should not be included on the Works Cited page.
  • References on the Works Cited page will be alphabetical by author. This way when a reader comes across an in-text citation they can quickly find the full citation in the Works Cited list
  • Follow the examples below for general guidelines on how to cite:
    • Print book: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Scribner, 2004. 
    • Online journal article: Fields, Ronald. "The Complexities of Noah in The Grapes of Wrath." The Steinbeck Review, vol. 6, no 1, 2009, pp. 52-61. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41582098.

Additional Resources

The manual for MLA Style is the MLA Handbook, 9th edition.  You can access the electronic version of the MLA Handbook through the library. For further help with footnotes, references, and general formatting, please see the Handbook or view the following resources:

Library MLA Style Guide

MLA Style Quick Guide

 

Turabian is a citation style closely related to Chicago Style.  It is commonly used in the Divinity, Arts, and Business disciplines.  Turabian is notable for its use of footnotes for in-text citations.  Footnotes are used in conjunction with reference pages.

Footnotes

When you first employ a source in a paper, you will use a detailed footnote for the citation.  If you needed to cite the same source again, however, you would then use a shortened version for further footnotes.  The initial detailed footnote contains full reference information and relevant page numbers.  Shortened footnotes, on the other hand, typically only contain the authors' last names, a shortened title, and the page numbers.  In the following examples, the first footnote shows the detailed version, while the second footnote shows the shortened version.

  • Journal article

Detailed Footnote: Alexandra Bogren, “Gender and Alcohol: The Swedish Press Debate,” Journal of   Gender Studies 20, no. 2 (June 2011): 156.
Shortened Footnote: Bogren, “Gender and Alcohol,” 157.

  • Journal article (online)

For a journal article found online, include an access date and URL or permalink. For articles that give a DOI number include "http://dx.doi.org/" before the number.

Detailed Footnote: Tonya Armstrong, "African-American Congregational Care and Counseling: Transcending Universal and Culturally-Specific Barriers." The Journal Of Pastoral Care & Counseling 70, no. 2 (2016): 120-121, accessed December 13, 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1542305016634666.
Shortened Footnote: Armstrong, "African-American Congregational Care", 120-121.

  • Book with a single author or editor

Detailed Footnote: Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Boston: Little, Brown, 2000), 64–65.
Shortened Footnote: Gladwell, Tipping Point, 71.

  • Book with two or more authors

Detailed Footnote: Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin, Framing Muslims: Stereotyping and Representation after 9/11 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 52.
Shortened Footnote: Morey and Yaqin, Framing Muslims, 60–61.

  • eBook

If the eBook was found online, include an access date and URL/permalink. If you used the library databases to locate the eBook, you may use the name of the database instead of the URL. If there are no page numbers, you can include the chapter or section number.

Detailed Footnote: Joseph P. Quinlan, The Last Economic Superpower: The Retreat of Globalization, the End of American Dominance, and What We Can Do about It (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010), 211, accessed December 8, 2012, ProQuest Ebrary.
Shortened Footnote: Quinlan, Last Economic Superpower, 211.

Bibliography

A Turabian bibliography should be alphabetized by the first word in each entry.  The first line is not indented, but subsequent lines are indented.  Please note that the following examples do not include proper indention formatting.

  • Journal Article

Bogren, Alexandra. “Gender and Alcohol: The Swedish Press Debate.” Journal of Gender Studies 20, no. 2 (June 2011): 155–69.

  • Journal Article (online)

For a journal article found online, include an access date and URL. For articles that give a DOI number include "http://dx.doi.org/" before the number.

Brown, Campbell. “Consequentialize This.” Ethics 121, no. 4 (July 2011): 749–71. Accessed December 1, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/660696.

  • Book with a single author or editor

Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000.

  • Book with two or more authors

Morey, Peter, and Amina Yaqin. Framing Muslims: Stereotyping and Representation after 9/11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.

  • eBook

If the ebook was found online, include an access date and URL/permalink. If you used the library databases to locate the ebook, you may use the name of the database instead of the URL.

Quinlan, Joseph P. The Last Economic Superpower: The Retreat of Globalization, the End of American Dominance, and What We Can Do about It. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Accessed December 8, 2012. ProQuest Ebrary.

Additional Resources

The print manuals for Chicago and Turabian are the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition and A Manual for Writers, 8th edition, respectively.  For further help with footnotes, references, and general formatting, please see the Chicago/Turabian Manuals or view the following resources:

Library Turabian Guide

Online Writing Center Turabian Quick Guide

AMA Style

The American Medical Association (AMA) Style is a citation style mainly used in medical publications and in various health fields.  The current print handbook is the AMA Manual of Style, 10th edition.

Additional Resources:

AMA Quick Guide

AMA Sample Paper

AMA Citation Video

 

Bluebook Style

Bluebook Style is a citation style commonly employed in legal publications and case citations in the United States legal system.  The current print handbook is the Bluebook, 20th edition.

Additional Resources: 

Bluebook Quick Guide

Other Bluebook Resources