Why cite sources?

It's important to cite sources you used in your research for several reasons:

• To show your reader you've done proper research by listing sources you used to get your information

• To be a responsible scholar by giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas

• To avoid plagiarism by quoting words and ideas used by other authors

• To allow your reader to track down the sources you used by citing them accurately in your paper and providing a bibliography or reference list

APA Citations

Citations are a short way to uniquely identify a published work. All citations consist of common components, and contain all the information necessary to identify and track down sources used in your research. Use the citations created for you on the databases (copy/paste), NoodleTools (through ClassLink), Scribbr, or the below template.

APA requires FOUR ELEMENTS of every citation:

• Author of content (or responsible party)

• Date content was published

• Title of content

• Publication information. This can be the website (or data base) you got it from or the journal or book's publication information.