Quick Help
Color-coded citation styles
Citing is the process of giving credit to the sources you used to write your paper. Citations can be located in the text or at the end of the work in a bibliography. It can be difficult to figure out what needs to be credited.
Use this rule of thumb: If you knew a piece of information before you started doing research, generally you do not need to credit it. You also do not need to cite well-known facts, such as dates, which can be found in many encyclopedias. All other information such as quotations, statistics, and ideas should always be cited in your papers.
Editorial Style
Editorial style consists of rules or guidelines that a publisher observes to ensure clear and consistent presentation of written material. Editorial style concerns uniform use of such elements as:
- punctuation and abbreviations
- construction of tables
- selection of headings
- citation of references
- presentation of statistics
- as well as many other elements that are a part of every manuscript
(From http://apastyle.apa.org/, emphasis added)
This site will provide you with a brief introduction to the following citation styles:
- APA: psychology, education, and other social sciences.
- MLA: literature, arts, and humanities.
- AMA: medicine, health, and biological sciences.
- Turabian: designed for college students to use with all subjects.
- Chicago: used with all subjects in the "real world" by books, magazines, newspapers, and other non-scholarly publications.
Managing your sources
RefWorks is a web-based citation management tool that is free for all students and faculty at University of Illinois. It works with databases and the online library catalog to import citations into your own personal database. You can organize your citations by topic in folders, share your citations with your colleagues or peers, and you can easily print bibliographies. For more information, watch this RefWorks tutorial. Other solutions include Zotero, a free Firefox extension that is great for capturing and archiving screenshots, Mendeley, a citation manager that is particularly good at managing .pdf files, and EndNote, a manager that is used heavily in the sciences. Compare all citation managers.
>> Download this graphic as a .pdf file. Or Compare all citation managers.
Print Style Manuals
The complete hardcopy style manuals contain examples about citing a wider variety of sources than these web pages do, as well as other things you may need to know, such as margins, font size, etc. You can find style manuals in the following library locations:
|
Style Manual |
Call Number |
Location(s) |
|
The ACS Style Guide: A Manual for Authors and Editors [Chemical], 2nd ed. |
808.06654 AC781997 |
Chemistry Library, Geology Reference |
|
American Medical Association Manual of Style, 10th ed. |
610.149 Am3s2007 |
Veterinary Med Reference, Main Reference |
|
The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. |
655.25 C43m2003 |
Main Reference, Undergraduate Library, most departmental libraries |
|
The Complete Guide to Citing Government Documents |
016.015 G186C1993 |
Main Reference, Main Stacks, Oak Street |
|
A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, ... [Turabian], 6th ed. |
808.02 T84M1996 |
Main Reference, Undergraduate Library, some departmental libraries |
|
The MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 3rd ed. |
808.02 Ac47m2008 |
Main Reference (Info Desk), English Reference |
|
The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed. |
808.02 M72m1 2009 |
Main Reference, Undergraduate Reference |
|
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed. |
029 AM4P 2010 |
Main Reference (Info Desk), Undergraduate Library, Education Reference, some departmental libraries |
|
Scientific Style and Format : The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 6th ed. |
029.6 C76S1994 |
Biology Reference, Natural History Reference, Vet. Med. Reference |
More information on citing sources
- The Writer's Workshop can help you with writing your paper; their site contains resources covering most grammar and writing needs.
- The University of Victoria Writer's Guide is a dynamic database suitable for answering most writing questions.
- The classic guide on usage, composition and form for the English language, William Strunk Jr.'s Elements of Style (1918 ed.), is available to you in full-text.
- When faced with the stickiest of citation questions, The Slot: A Spot for Copy Editors may be able to help you with APA-related questions.
- If you have questions regarding citing electronic resources, please visit IPL's Citing Electronic Sources.
- Cite a Source: University of Illinois Library
- Citing Print & Electronic Resources
- Compare all citation managers
Based on: http://www2.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citation.htm Long Island University, Robert Delaney
