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Citation Guidelines

July 3, 2025

Why cite?   

  • Gives credit to authors whose works you have used (whether you quote them or not) 
  • Provides a trail by which others can locate the materials you consulted 
  • Provides evidence of your research 
  • Protects you from accusations of plagiarism 
  • No one can say you stole or copied ideas from someone else  

Tips to help you avoid plagiarizing: 

  • Never cut and paste 
  • Always cite sources
    • All words quoted directly from another source 
    • All ideas paraphrased from a source
    • All ideas borrowed from another source: statistics, graphs
    • All ideas or materials taken from the Internet, including images

The citation styles most commonly used:

  • American Psychological Association Style (APA) - the most common style in the sciences and social sciences (economics, psychology, education, sociology, etc.)
  • Chicago (or Turabian) Style - commonly used in the humanities (history, philosophy, etc.) 
  • Modern Language Association Style (MLA) - used in English and in some other disciplines in the humanities  

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