Citation

You get your research assignment from your professor and they require that you cite your sources. Maybe they want you to use APA or MLA, or some other style like Chicago, AMA, or ASA. What does this really mean? 

Citing yours sources...

• Adds to your credibility and supports your ideas!
• Helps your reader find the sources you reference to read for themselves
• Ensures the accuracy of scientific and scholarly knowledge
• Protects and acknowledges intellectual property rights

When should you cite? 

• Direct Quotations: When you use the author’s exact words
• Paraphrasing: When you summarize someone else’s words or ideas
• Facts: When you mention something that is not common knowledge
• Images: When you use pictures, charts, and graphics that someone else created in a presentation 

Citing as a social justice practice

• When we cite, as authors we are saying who's ideas and words are important. Miranda Fricker describes this as a form of epistemic justice and we can reshape who is an authority.
• We can consider authorial identity and actively work to diversify who we cite. For examples, see Cite Black Women and 500 Women Scientists.
• Traditional scholarly citation practices only acknowledge the core authors but often many more people contribute to a work than ever get credit. Check out acknowledgements and methodology sections of articles to find these contributors and acknowledge them in your own work.

 This guide was created by Tessa Withorn, Carolyn Caffrey, Maggie Clarke, and Jillian Holt Eslami at CSUDH Library and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.