Giving proper acknowledgements to the contributors of an academic source is important for a number of reasons. First, it shows your reader that you’ve reviewed research from reputable sources. Second, citing the ideas and quotes of other authors also allows you to avoid any plagiarism– or the use of another author’s work without proper credit. Lastly, accurately citing the sources you utilize–via footnotes, a bibliography, or reference list–allows your reader to dive deeper into the areas of your research they find most interesting.
There are many different ways and forms you can give credit through citation in your work. Citing a source means that you show, within the body of your text, that you took words, ideas, figures, images, etc. from another place. Citations consist of all the information necessary to identify and track down publications, including (MIT Libraries, 2022):
- author name(s)
- titles of books, articles, and journals
- date of publication
- page numbers
- volume and issue numbers (for articles)
Citations will be structured and formatted differently depending on the discipline and style used. Examples include MLA, Chicago, Turabian, APA, and IEEE. Citation styles are used as a way of making common citation elements represented in a consistent format. Which style you use depends on the academic field and/or specifications of the academic journal. If you are unsure about which citation style to employ, ask a professor or librarian about which one to use. The table below lists a common citation style and includes a link to style guide for various disciplines. Read more about citation styles in different disciplines.
| Discipline | Citation Style | Style |
| Anthropology | Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) | owl.purdue.edu |
| Economics | Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) | owl.purdue.edu |
| History | Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) | owl.purdue.edu |
| Linguistics | Linguistics Society of America (LSA) Style | linguisticsociety.org |
| Psychology, Education, and other Social Sciences | American Psychological Associate (APA) Style | owl.purdue.edu |
| Political Science | Political Science | connect.apsanet.org |
| Sociology | American Sociological Association (ASA) Style | asanet.org |
Managing Citations
Keeping track of and organizing citations can be extremely time intensive. A citation manager–software that helps you to collect, organize, share, and cite the source you utilize–can help to automate and expedite the process. Familiarizing yourself with a citation management tool can save you a substantial amount of time, particularly when used from the onset of the research process.
Citation managers like Zotero or Endnote help you to generate properly formatted citations for your sources and will do the work of converting them to different citation styles. They also allow you to keep track of the different texts you’re engaging with throughout your review of literature. Some benefits of citation managers include (Queen’s University Library, 2023):
- Managing all of your sources in one place.
- Uploading and store full-text PDFs and other file types for your sources.
- Generating formatted bibliographies in desired format.
- Organizing your references into meaningful collection folders that may serve a variety of purposes.
If you’re unsure about how to use a citation manager, you can ask your institution’s librarian or an academic advisor to help you acquaint yourself with the tool.
Using a citation manager can make it easier to compile an annotated bibliography: a list of citations to books, articles, and documents followed by a brief descriptive and evaluative annotation or paragraph. The purpose of the notes section of an annotated bibliography is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.
