Research Skills: A Blog Series from your ELI Library Staff

Citing Your Sources

Really, the hardest part of doing research is finding the best sources and completing your paper or assignment using those sources. Citing them should be the easy part. But students tend to get pretty stressed out when it comes to citations. No worries, though, we can help.

First, why is it important to cite? There are really 2 main reasons:

1) Readers of your paper or research should be able to find where you got your information, even if your information came from online videos, podcasts, or social media. If you use or refer to images, sound, or music, your readers should be able to find those sources. By citing your sources, you give your readers a chance to utilize those same resources out of interest, or even to check your facts. 

All citation styles, e.g. MLA and APA, try to include all the information needed for someone to track down that source. 

2) You need to give credit to the creators/authors of the information you use. This is key to academic integrity and avoiding plagiarism.

For information on formatting, in-text citations, and reference lists, take a look at the style guides below:

• NOVA MLA Citation Style Guide
• NOVA APA Citation Style Guide

·    NOVA Libraries: Citing Media

You can also explore the following sites for more help:

• Purdue OWL MLA Formatting and Style Guide
• Purdue OWL APA Formatting and Style Guide
• FAQs about the MLA Style Manual
• APA Style Blog

And go to the ELI Webinars schedule at http://eli.nvcc.edu/webinars.htm to sign up for upcoming citation webinars.