We make citations and write bibliographic references for the books and articles that we use in our research papers in order to give credit to the authors and to avoid plagiarism. Knowing just how to cite a source can be confusing. Certainly all the different ways of citing sources must have been invented to drive students crazy, right?
Wrong! There are only three ways to make a citation.
- The first way is in a footnote at the bottom of the page or an endnote at the end of your paper. This is the traditional Humanities style preferred by The Chicago Manual of Style.
- The second way to make a citation is parenthetically, within the text of your paper. This is the so-called Harvard system used by both the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Psychological Association (APA). Each citation is linked to a reference in the reference list, which the MLA calls “Works Cited” and the APA “References.”
- The third way to make a citation is by connecting your quotation, paraphrase, or summary directly to a numbered reference in your reference list. This is the citation sequence system used in the sciences and the health sciences by the Council of Science Editors in Scientific Style and Format, or the CSE, and by the American Medical Association, or the AMA.
All these style manuals have different ways to write references, too. For help, visit our
Citing Sources subject guide.
