Understanding Citations in Academic Writing

Citations in Academic Writing

• Citations are used to give credit to authors who created and shared ideas, information, and language used in a writing.
• Citations help readers to:
  • Retrace sources of information and ideas.
  • Conduct their own research.
• Citations are essential to:
  • Avoid plagiarism.
  • Give credit to original authors.

In-Text Citations

• In-text citations are parenthetical references used in sentences to acknowledge the source of information.
• In-text citations typically include:
  • Author's last name.
  • Year of publication.
  • Page number (if applicable).

Citation Styles

• Common citation styles:
  • MLA (Modern Language Association).
  • APA (American Psychological Association).
  • Chicago Author-Date style.
• Each discipline tends to use one of these citation styles more frequently than others.

MLA Format Citations

• In-text citations include:
  • Author's last name.
  • Page number (if applicable).
• Examples:
  • (Williams 17).
  • (Williams, Discovery 41).
  • (Williams, Prehistorical Animals of Mexico 8).

APA Format Citations

• In-text citations include:
  • Author's last name.
  • Year of publication.
  • Page number (if applicable).
• Examples:
  • (Robbins, 2021).
  • (Robbins, 2021, p. 5).
  • (Choiniere & Benson, 2021).

Chicago Format Citations

• In-text citations include:
  • Author's last name.
  • Year of publication.
  • Page number (if applicable).
• Examples:
  • (Stachel 2021).
  • (Stachel 2021, 5).
  • (Lopez et al., 2021).

Creating Citations

• Ways to create citations:
  • Typing directly in a word-processing application.
  • Using a citation tool in a word-processing application.
  • Stand-alone online citation generators (e.g., CitationMachine, Opendemia).
  • Reference management software (e.g., Zotero).
• Important: Check automatically generated citations for accuracy.### In-Text Citations
• When a website or webpage has no author, the organization's name is used in the in-text citation instead of the author's last name.

Chicago Style Guides

• Chicago Author-Date style guides are different from Chicago Notes-Bibliography style.
• Chicago Notes-Bibliography style is used in the humanities.
• It uses footnotes or endnotes instead of in-text citations.

Importance of Citations

• Citations help readers retrace sources of information, ideas, and language for use in their research and writing.
• Citations give credit to the original authors who created and shared the ideas or information used in the paper.
• Citations help a writer avoid plagiarism by distinguishing between their own work and borrowed ideas.
• Citations help readers conduct their research by enabling them to revisit the sources of an author's interpretations and arguments.
• To avoid plagiarism, a writer must use quotation marks around language quoted from the source and make sufficient changes in the language and grammar when paraphrasing a source.

Learn about the importance of citations in academic writing. Discover when to use citations and the different scenarios when they are required or optional.