What are Citations and How to Cite Them? A Complete Guide

Citing sources is an essential part of academic writing. It means acknowledging the original sources of information, ideas, and arguments that you use in your paper. 

Academic writing always builds upon relevant work done by others. That’s why writers need to clarify and differentiate their own contributions from the contributions of others. This is where citations come in. 

Citations are meant to ensure academic integrity and credibility and prevent plagiarism of other works. Whether a point in your writing is from a book, journal article, web page, or any other kind of source, it needs to be accurately cited. 

Why Cite Sources?

Citations serve several important purposes in academic writing. It is essential to maintain credibility and promote original contributions. Here’s why citing sources is important:

• Citations give clear and proper credit to the original author of an idea to avoid plagiarism.
• They provide evidence and support for your claims and arguments and show that you have done proper research and analysis.
• To enable your readers to locate and access the sources that you have used and verify their accuracy and reliability.
• To demonstrate your academic integrity, credibility, and professionalism and follow the ethical and academic standards of your discipline and institution.
• To enhance the quality and impact of your paper and contribute to the scholarly conversation and knowledge production in your field.

When to Cite Sources?

You should cite sources whenever you use information, ideas, or arguments that are not your own or common knowledge. 

Here are the situations where you must cite a source:

• When quoting directly from a source, use the exact words as the source.
• When paraphrasing or summarizing a source, use your own words to express the main points or gist of the source.
• When presenting facts, statistics, data, or evidence from a source.
• When using an idea, theory, concept, model, framework, or argument from a source, even if you modify or adapt it to your own context.
• When using an image, graph, chart, table, diagram, map, or any other visual representation from another source.

What Does a Citation Include?

Every citation has two parts: 

1. A brief in-text citation that is presented right after an idea from another source is mentioned within the text of the paper.
2. A corresponding citation that provides detailed information about the source in the reference list or works cited page at the end of the paper. 

This way, the readers know exactly which points are taken from an external source and which ideas are the writer’s own. Similarly, with the bibliographic citations at the end, the readers know exactly which sources the author has referred to. 

Citing Sources in Text 

There are many different citation styles that you can use to cite sources, depending on the conventions of your discipline. Each citation style has its own rules and conventions for how to format and present your in-text citations and references. 

Some of the citation styles use parenthetical citations for in-text citations, while others require numerical citations. Let’s get an overview of these differences:

Parenthetical Citations

In a parenthetical citation, essential information about the source (such as the author’s last name, year of publishing, and page numbers) is provided in brackets at the end of a sentence or paragraph where the source is referred.

For example,

The most common citation styles for social sciences, humanities, business and management sciences use parenthetical citations. Citing sources in APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, Harvard, and many others require parenthetical citations.

Numerical Citations

Meanwhile, academic standards in natural sciences and technical fields prefer numerical citations. In a numerical citation, a number is written in superscript or brackets where the source is mentioned. Each number corresponds to a detailed citation in the reference list.

For example,

Footnote Citations

Apart from parenthetical and numerical citations, there are also the footnote/endnote citations, used mainly in the note-bibliography variant of the Chicago style. It involves presenting brief citations in the footnote of the page where a source is mentioned while detailed information is presented in the bibliography at the end.

For example,

Reference List

A reference list (or bibliography) is a list of all the sources that you have cited in your paper, usually placed at the end of your paper. A reference list provides the full details of each source, such as the author, title, publisher, date, and URL. 

A reference list allows your readers to locate and access the sources that you have used, and to verify their accuracy and reliability. The format and style of reference list entries depend on the citation style that you are using.

How to Cite Sources?

Whether you’re writing a research paper, annotated bibliography, essay, or report, you need to cite the reference material you use. Regardless of the type of academic work, you should cite sources accurately and consistently throughout.

Step 1 – Know Your Citation Style

Before anything else, you must know which citation style you are going to apply in your paper. If you are writing a student paper, you should check the instructions provided by your instructor or institution. 

These instructions are based on the academic conventions of your field of study, so there should be no confusion about which style is recommended. For instance, disciplines like language, arts, and humanities, in general, prefer the MLA style for academic writing about these topics.

Similarly, if you’re writing for a journal, you should see their guidelines for writers. Once you know about the citation style and its requirements, you are all set to proceed.

Step 2 – Provide In-Text Citations as You Write

As you write your paper, don’t forget to cite the sources whenever they are referred. There are several ways to incorporate information and ideas from other sources. These include:

• Direct Quotation: This is when you use the exact words of the source, enclosed in quotation marks.
• Paraphrasing: You can use your own words to restate the source's meaning.
• Summarizing: It happens when you use your own words to present the main points or gist of the source.

So whenever you directly quote, paraphrase, or summarize another source, add an in-text citation. 

The in-text citations should be written according to the guidelines of the specific citation style you are using. For instance, the American Psychological Association manual of style requires the author’s last name and the year of publishing for in-text citations. 

Step 3 – Compile the List of References

The list of references is presented in a separate section at the end of the paper. Depending on the citation style, it can be titled “References,” “Works Cited,” “Bibliography,” and also “List of References”. It presents complete citations that correspond to the in-text citations in your paper.

You should compile the list of references after you finish writing your paper. This will help you check and revise your citations and references and ensure that they are consistent, accurate, and complete. 

Each citation style sets specific formats for providing information about different kinds of sources. For example, the reference list entry format for citing a book would be different from the format for citing a journal or web source. 

However, you don’t have to learn and remember each rule when creating a reference list. Instead, you can use online tools and methods to generate accurate reference entries accurately. 

And that’s how you cite your citations and make your writing more credible and sound!

Websites for Citing Sources

You should follow the citation style guidelines consistently and accurately throughout your paper. For this purpose, you can use online tools that ensure accurate citations, such as PerfectEssayWriter.ai’s Citation Generator. This AI-powered citation tool helps you find and cite relevant sources customized to your topic and required citation style!