Color-coded Citation Styles

citing_sources

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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.

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 Reserves
American Medical Association Manual of Style, 9th ed.	610.149 AM3S1998	Veterinary Med Reference
The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed	655.25 C43m2003	Reference Library, Undergraduate Library, most departmental libraries
The Complete Guide to Citing Government Documents	016.015 G186C1993	Govt. Documents, Lib. & Info. Sci. Stacks, Reference, Undergrad Reference
A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, ... [Turabian], 6th ed.	808.02 T84M1996	Reference Library, Undergraduate Library, some departmental libraries
The MLA Style Manual, 2nd edition.	808.02 AC47M1998	Reference Library, Undergraduate Library, most departmental libraries
The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th ed.	808.02 M72 M1 2003	Reference Library, Undergraduate Reference, English Reference, some departmental libraries
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed.	029 AM4P 2001	Reference Library, Undergraduate Library, Education Reference, Lib. & Info. Sci. Reference
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

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. One more solution that may be useful for you is Zotero, a free Firefox extension that is great for capturing and archiving screenshots.

More information on citing sources

Cite a Source: University of Illinois Library

Citing Print & Electronic Resources

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