Citing Your Sources

   by  fixedandfrailing 

Editorial style consists of rules or guidelines that a publisher observes to ensure clear and consistent presentation of written material. Editorial style concerns uniform use of such elements as

• punctuation and abbreviations

• construction of tables

• selection of headings

• citation of references

• presentation of statistics

• as well as many other elements that are a part of every manuscript

Decide which citation style to use based on: what style is most-used in the discipline for which you are writing and what style is recommended or required by your instructor.

And whatever style you choose, BE CONSISTENT!

There are several citation management systems that can help you work more efficiently by saving your citations and automatically formatting your papers: Zotero, EndNote, RefWorks, BibTex, RefMan, EasyBib, ProCite and many others. Zotero includes a Firefox browser extension that automatically pulls the information you need.

For more information about Zotero, visit the Zotero Research Guide and look for upcoming workshops on the SkillShops Calendar. 

Using a citation generator is an easy way to create citations in proper format. It is a type of online tool that creates bibliographic and in-text citations for you. Here are a couple that use the most common citation styles, like APA, Chicago, and MLA.

Not all citation builders are always correct.  Some are slow to adopt changes from style guide updates, may have a programming error, or may include entries that are mistyped.  You should always double check auto-generated citations for correctness according to the style you are using.

Be sure to check your syllabus or with your instructor to make sure you are using the appropriate citation system and edition of that system.