Citation and Citation Styles
Robyn Hartman
Citing sources is an academic convention for keeping track of and acknowledging the influence of other scholars on your own thinking and research, thereby contributing to the ongoing scholarly conversation.
(See Ethical Use of Sources for many good reasons why you should cite others’ work.)
Any time you talk about somebody else’s words, ideas, images, or information, there should be some type of citation. If you are just mentioning ideas or work, you can just mention the source of the information as part of your sentence. For many citations, saying the information about the source as part of your sentences is enough. Consider this conversation between Luce and their mother Camila:
Luce: That medical procedure is really painful. I try to breathe or meditate, but I can’t because of the pain.
Camila: I think about a place I love so much that I can go there in my mind, like the waterfalls we went to in Oregon last summer. I read it in the book you gave me by Dr. Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands.
Camila mentions the book she read, which is a form of citation, as she acknowledges the source of the information she shares with Luce.
Academic writing requires each source to be cited in two places:
- In-text citation: Briefly references an item on the source list in parentheses within the writing. The information in the parentheses will normally include the author’s last name or the source’s name.
- End-of-Text or Bibliographic citation: A reference list with complete bibliographic information about each source. The name of the reference list varies depending on the style guide used and might be called Works Cited, References, or Bibliography.
With your in-text citation, your reader can tell which full bibliographic citation you are referring to by paying attention to the author’s name and publication date.
Here’s a citation in the text of an academic paper:
Example: Citations in Academic Writing
As a mortal, Tithonus is prevented from fully participating in immortality as the gods would experience it, despite a decree from Zeus and a diet of ambrosia, a substance which is tied to anti-aging, but may not directly cause the gods’ immortality (Clay 1981–1982, pp. 115–16; Baratz 2015).
The information in parentheses coordinates with a list of full citations at the end of the paper.
At the end of the paper, these bibliographic entries appear in a reference list:
Example: Citations in a Reference List
Baratz, Amit. 2015. The Source of the Gods’ Immortality in Archaic Greek Literature. Scripta Classica Israelica 34: 151–64.
Clay, Jenny Strauss. 1981–1982. Immortal and Ageless Forever. The Classical Journal 77: 112–17
You can see the full article from which this example was taken online
Citation Styles
Style guides set the specific rules for creating in-text citations and their full bibliographic citations.There are over a dozen kinds of citation styles. While each style requires much of the same publication information to be included in a citation, the styles differ from each other in formatting details such as capitalization, punctuation, order of publication information, and whether the author’s name is given in full or abbreviated.
Why are there so many different citation styles?
There are many citation styles because different academic disciplines value and use information differently. A citation style is designed to support the needs of a particular field of study and the types of sources researchers use most often. The good news for students is that once you learn the purpose behind citations, adapting to a different style becomes much easier because the underlying goals remain the same.
Three common styles of Citation
| Style | Creators | History | Unique Features | Frequently Used by: | Best Used When: |
| APA Style | American Psychological Association | It was created in 1929 when a group of psychologists, anthropologists, and business managers sought to establish simple procedures to ease reading comprehension in scientific writing. | Emphasizes the currency of research through an author-date citation system (e.g., Smith, 2023). Includes detailed guidelines for reporting research methods, statistics, and data. | Psychology, education, sociology, business, nursing, health sciences, and other social sciences. | Current research is important and studies build on recent findings |
| The Chicago Manual of Style | University of Chicago Press | It was originally developed in the late 1800s to consistently correct and edit the papers of University of Chicago faculty members. | Offers two documentation systems: Notes and Bibliography (using footnotes or endnotes) and Author-Date. It is especially well suited for sources that require extensive explanation or historical context. | History, religion, art history, literature, and other humanities disciplines. | Detailed source documentation and historical context are important |
| MLA Handbook | Modern Languages Association | First codified in 1951, it uses brief, parenthetical, in-text citations designed to minimize interruptions. | Focuses on authorship rather than publication date, using author-page citations (e.g., Smith 25). Designed for disciplines that emphasize close reading and textual analysis. | English composition, literature, languages, cultural studies, humanities, and liberal arts. | Analyzing and discussing texts, creative works, and language |
Below are bibliographic citations in the three common styles. Compare citation elements (including the punctuation and spacing) in the same color to see how each style handles its information.
Notice that they all contain information about:
- Who the author is
- The article title
- The journal title
- The publication year
- Information about volume, issue, and pages.
Example: End-of-Text Bibliographic Citation Styles
APA Style 7th Edition
Norgard, A. L. (2024). Artificial life, divinity, and mythology in Star Trek. Religions, 15(4), 436. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel15040436
The Chicago Manual of Style (author-date) 17th edition
Norgard, Amy L. 2024. “Artificial Life, Divinity, and Mythology in Star Trek.” Religions 15 (4): 436. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel15040436
MLA Handbook 9th edition
Norgard, Amy L. “Artificial Life, Divinity, and Mythology in Star Trek.” Religions, vol. 15 no. 4, 2024, p. 436 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel15040436
Notice also the small differences in punctuation, order of the elements, and formatting that do make a difference.
Chapter Attribution:
Choosing and Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research by Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University Libraries, licensed under CC BY 4.0
Citations by Robyn Hartman, Julie Hartwell, Geoffrey Iverson, Eric Kowalik, Kendall Roemer, and Matt Upson, New Literacies Alliance, licenses under CC BY 4.0
Reading and Writing Research for Undergraduates by Stephanie Ojeda Ponce, Highline College, licensed under CC BY 4.0
Pointing out in what sources you found each direct quote and where/who the ideas that you paraphrased and summarized in your research paper, essay, or poster came from. The citing may appear at the point of quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing (called in-text citations) and at the end of the document on pages typically called References, Bibliography, or Works Cited. Citations are an integral part of academic integrity and avoiding plagiarism
Pointing out in what sources you found each direct quote you quoted and ideas that you paraphrased or summarized in your research term paper, essay, presentation, or poster. In-text citations are made right at the point that you used the direct quote, paraphrase, or summarization. In-text citations usually contain the last name of the author you are citing and, in some cases, the date of the source you are citing and/or a specific page number. The sources for which you have in-text citations are listed along with their publication facts at the end of your essay, or research paper.
Citations, often at the end of a publication, that show where ideas or quotes contributed by others and used in the publication came from. These citations usually include titles, authors’ names, date and place of publication, and other information that would help readers locate the publications. Such citations are usually on pages called Bibliography, References, or Works Cited. See intext citations
A list of all sources cited in a research paper, formatted according to a specific citation style.
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