What is citation?
Why does it matter?
There's a new (easier!) way to access these scholarly databases: through the ConnectED tool located on the NCEdCloud dashboard. Click this link to see step by step instructions for accessing ConnectEd.
For teachers: Here's a comprehensive list of all ConnectEd resources.
Library Card Applications: Digital & Paper
UC Berkley's Guide to Comparing Scholarly and Popular Sources
Yes, this is a difficult thing to do! Source evaluation takes time and energy and practice; you will probably start out bad at it (just like everyone else). But the good news is that there are tools you can use to help get started, and the more you practice these skills, the better you will get at it!
Most Valuable Tool: Lateral Reading
The entirety of CrashCourse: Navigating Digital Information is basically a whole online class about evaluating information. Watching this series will probably make you a better, more informed citizen.
Finally: The "How would I cite this?" Test basically just asks, "can I find enough information here (e.g. title, author, publication date, etc) to create a detailed bibliographic citation for this source?" If you're missing most of those details, you've probably found an unreliable source.
Should I Cite? Flow Chart (OWL)
Research & Documentation Online 5th Edition - This is an older, no longer updated webpage, and it does contain some broken links, but it's still one of the best overviews for quickly figuring out which university-level academic departments use which style of citation. (e.g., Mouseover "Finding Sources" on the pink "Sciences" sub-menu, and you'll see that Nursing, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Engineering courses all use CSE style citation—not just the "obvious" sciences: Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.)
Tons of universities maintain Library or Writing Center webpages that offer detailed help with citations. Here are a few of my favorites:
UNCG Library Resources Page - virtually every college or university will maintain a similar website, but UNCG is my alma mater, and I am more familiar with their resources that most others. Click "Help with Research" or "Help with Citations" to expand those menus and see additional hyperlinks. If you want comprehensive, virtual lessons about the subject, consider using their ULTRA service. (100% free)
UNCG Citations Page - This link defaults to their MLA 9 style guide, but you can click the tabs at the top of the page to switch to APA, Chicago, etc.
AppState Writing Center - This link defaults to the citation style "handouts" page belonging to ASU's Writing Center. A good rule of thumb for finding citation help at any University is to search their main website for a "Writing Center" or "Writing Lab" or "Communication Lab" subpage. These resources exist specifically to teach students how to write in this research-dependent, academic style. (And if you attend these Universities, their Writing Centers general maintain physical locations on campus too where you can walk right in and ask a real person for help!)
PennState Citations Page - Penn State has another of the cleanest and easiest to navigate Citation Help pages available online.
Brown University Citation Guide - I am especially fond of the way Brown's website reinforces each citation style with extremely clear examples and visual aids.
University of Pittsburgh Citation Styles Guide - I like how Pitt has stored many of their examples in an easy to browse "chart" format. They also do a good job of linking multimedia sources of help (online video tutorials).
Purdue OWL - Purdue's Online Writing Lab is considered by many the "best of the best" when it comes to an online encyclopedia of citation style guides. They include excellent resources for MLA and APA, and even have a whole section devoted to IEEE (the footnote-centered style used on Wikipedia). That said, I've deliberately placed this source a bit farther down in my list because it's information density is very high, and it can be harder for students who are new to research and citation to navigate than the earlier links.
OpenColleges Blog Post - Here's a great list (annotated!) of other online citation help webpages maintained by various colleges and universities.
Here are two citation generators—websites that will create the complex, detailed citations that go on your bibliography.
KnightCite - Need help building a custom bibliographic citation? KnightCite will walk you through (fill-in-the-blank) MLA 9, APA 7, and Chicago style...for free! I consider this a more dated type of "citation helper" software, but it is far from obsolete. I would also argue that the hands-on approach it forces you to take does a better job of teaching the basics of citation than many of the more "automatic" options out there (e.g. easybib, sonofcitation machine, etc).
Zotero - A whole suite of citation tools (and a built in bookmark/research assistant). If you're looking for a more state-of-the-art solution, try Zotero out. This resource will help you create a citation just as well as KnightCite, but it has a ton of other research functionality too. (a Zotero account is free, but with some "freemium" features locked behind a paywall/subscription model.) And if you only need help creating a bibliography, try ZoteroBib instead.