Why do we need to cite our sources?
Many students tend to get anxious with citation styles (MLA, APA, etc.) that they forget why they need to cite their sources in the first place. The following three reasons listed in Cite Right: A Quick Guide to Citation Styles--MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and More by Charles Lipson (p.3) capture the values that citation styles try to promote among a community of scholars, including students who enter into scholarly conversation through their writing assignments.
- To give credit to others' work and ideas, whether you agree with them or not. When you use their words, you must give them credit by using both quotation marks and citations.
- To show readers the materials on which you base your analysis, your narrative, or your conclusions.
- To guide readers to the materials you have used so they can examine it for themselves. Their interest might be to confirm your work, to challenge it, or simply to explore it further.
Common citation style guides
Styles do matter. Standard ways of formatting and presenting parts or elements of a written piece of work facilitate communication between writers and readers in a given field of study.
Several style guides have been developed around the practice of citing sources in scholarly work. The ones most commonly used in academic writing are:
- Modern Library Association (MLA) Style- commonly used in the liberal arts and humanities fields of study (English, Literature, the Arts). See the following specific guides to the MLA Style.
Hacker, Diana. Documenting Sources in MLA Style: 2009 Update, A Hacker Handbooks Supplement. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. Web.
Hacker, Diana and Fisher, Barbara. Eds. "MLA Style: English and Other Humanities." Research and Documentation Online. 5th ed. Web.
Russell, Tony, Allen Brizee, and Elizabeth Angeli. "MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab. Web.
- American Psychological Association (APA) Style- widely accepted as the citation style in the behavioral and social sciences (Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology, Political Science, etc.).
Hacker, D. & Fisher, B. (Eds.) APA Style: The Social Sciences. In Research and Documentation Online. 5th ed.
Paiz, J.M, Angeli, E., Wagner, J., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Anderson, M., ... Keck, R.(2013-03-01).APA Formatting and Style Guide. In The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab.
- Chicago Manual of Style- presents two basic documentation systems - (1) a notes and bibliography style preferred by those in the humanities, history, and the arts and (2) an author-date system used by those in the physical, natural, and social sciences.
Diana Hacker and Barbara Fisher. (Eds.) "Chicago Style: History." Research and Documentation Online. 5th ed.
Clements, Jessica, Elizabeth Angeli, Karen Schiller, S. C. Gooch, Laurie Pinkert, and Allen Brizee. 2012. “General Format.” The Purdue OWL.
For a comparison of the above three citation styles, see The Purdue OWL's Citation Style Chart.