Citation

In the academic world, one of the major building blocks of research is respect of others' intellectual property. Writers demonstrate that respect and thus earn the confidence of their readers by following the rules for using sources. Throughout the years, various academic disciplines have developed formats for recording those citations. Before starting your research, it is a good idea to ask which format is required by your department, your professor, or the journal to which you are submitting your work.

MIT's Humanities Library has very comprehensive links to Style/Usage Manuals.

Columbia University Press has a useful short version of various formats.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison has a very comprehensive "Documentation Styles" as part of its online "Writers Handbook."

Binghampton University Libraries offer information on "Citing Internet and Other Electronic Sources"

The Computer Society offers an online "Style Guide."

The American Library Association provides an online style guide that deals with unusual citation issues, issues not commonly found in other sources.

These are the major citation formats:

APA - American Psychological Association (Author-Date Style) Source: Purdue University

CBE - Council of Biology Editors (Citation-Sequence System) Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison

CMS - Chicago Manual of Style (Note Citations) Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison

IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (Citation-Sequence System) Source: The Computer Society

MLA - Modern Language Association (Author-Page Style) Source: Northwestern Missouri State University (See also MLA - Source: Purdue University

NLM - National Library of Medicine Source: University of Washington

Avoiding Plagiarism - Failing to use one of the above methods of citation is one of several causes of plagiarism, a serious academic offense.