Many writing assignments require you to use other people's words and ideas alongside your own. Sometimes you already know what resources you should use—such as a novel or class reading—but assignments often need you to find resources on your own. Giving credit to the resources you were influenced by in a recognizable and appropriate way is a very important skill when completing academic writing assignments.
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Citation enables you to show that you took words, ideas, or images from somewhere else and used them in your own work. It allows you to give credit to sources used and to distinguish your ideas from the ideas of others.
Citations appear throughout a written work and (in a longer form) in a list of references.
A reference includes the following information:
The order in which this information occurs in your citation is called style. Your instructor will tell you to use either APA or MLA Style.
In-text citations
If you've used someone else's words or put someone else's ideas into your own words, you need to show it. Give credit to the resources you've used in the body of your paper through the use of in-text citations.
These tools can help you document and format your references.