What is a citation and citation style?

A citation is a way of giving credit to individuals for their creative and intellectual works that
you utilized to support your research. It can also be used to locate particular sources and
combat plagiarism. Typically, a citation can include the author's name, date, location of the
publishing company, journal title, or DOI (Digital Object Identifer).

A citation style dictates the information necessary for a citation and how the information is
ordered, as well as punctuation and other formatting.

How to do I choose a citation style?

There are many different ways of citing resources from your research. The citation style
sometimes depends on the academic discipline involved. For example:

 APA (American Psychological Association) is used by Education, Psychology, and

Sciences
 MLA (Modern Language Association) style is used by the Humanities
 Chicago/Turabian style is generally used by Business, History, and the Fine Arts

APA (American Psychological Association) Style originated in 1929, when a group of

psychologists, anthropologists, and business managers convened and sought to establish a
simple set of procedures, or style rules, that would codify the many components of scientific
writing to increase the ease of reading comprehension.

As with other editorial styles, APA Style consists of rules or guidelines that a publisher
observes to ensure clear and consistent presentation of written material. It concerns uniform
use of such elements as selection of headings, tone, and length, punctuation and
abbreviations, presentation of numbers and statistics, construction of tables and figures,
citation of references, and many other elements that are a part of a manuscript. (Source: Official APA
website)

In-text Citation with APA

The APA style calls for three kinds of information to be included in in-text citations. The
author's last name and the work's date of publication must always appear, and these items
must match exactly the corresponding entry in the references list. The third kind of
information, the page number, appears only in a citation to a direct quotation (Crockatt,
1995).

....(Crockatt, 1995).

Direct quote from the text

"The potentially contradictory nature of Moscow's priorities surfaced first in its policies
towards East Germany and Yugoslavia," (Crockatt, 1995, p. 1).
Major Citations for a Reference List/Bibliography

Note: All second and third lines in the APA Bibliography should be indented.

Material Type Reference List/Bibliography

A book in print Baxter, C. (1997). Race equality in health care and education.
Philadelphia: Ballière Tindall.

Agarwal, V. (2020). Food hygiene and sanitation. Jaipur: New

Age publications.
A book chapter, print Haybron, D. M. (2008). Philosophy and the science of
version subjective well-being. In M. Eid & R. J. Larsen (Eds.), The
science of subjective well-being (pp. 17-43). New York, NY:
Guilford Press.
An eBook Millbower, L. (2003). Show biz training: Fun and effective
business training techniques from the worlds of stage, screen,
and song. Retrieved from http://www.amacombooks.org/
An article in a print Alibali, M. W. (1999). How children change their minds:
journal Strategy change can be gradual or abrupt. Developmental
Psychology, 35, 127-145.
An article in a journal Carter, S., & Dunbar-Odom, D. (2009). The converging
without DOI literacies center: An integrated model for writing programs.
Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy,
14(1), 38-48. Retrieved from http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/
An article in a journal with Gaudio, J. L., & Snowdon, C. T. (2008). Spatial cues more
DOI salient than color cues in cotton-top tamarins (saguinus
oedipus) reversal learning. Journal of Comparative
Psychology, 122, 441-444. doi: 10.1037/0735-7036.122.4.441
Websites - professional or The World Famous Hot Dog Site. (1999, July 7). Retrieved
personal sites January 5, 2008, from
http://www.xroads.com/~tcs/hotdog/hotdog.html
Websites - online U.S. Department of Justice. (2006, September 10). Trends in
government publications violent victimization by age, 1973-2005. Retrieved from
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/vage.htm
Emails (cited in-text only) According to preservationist J. Mohlhenrich (personal
communication, January 5, 2008).
Mailing Lists (listserv) Stein, C.(2006, January 5).  Chessie rescue - Annapolis, MD
[Message posted to Chessie-L electronic mailing list].
Retrieved from  http://[email protected]
Radio and TV episodes - DeFord, F. (Writer). (2007, August 8). Beyond Vick: Animal
from library databases cruelty for sport [Television series episode]. In NPR
(Producer), Morning Edition. Retrieved from Academic
OneFile database.
Radio and TV episodes - Sepic, M. (Writer). (2008). Federal prosecutors eye MySpace
from website bullying case [Television series episode]. In NPR
(Producer), All Things Considered. Retrieved from
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/
Film Clips from website Kaufman, J.C. (Producer), Lacy, L. (Director), & Hawkey, P.
(Writer). (1979). Mean Joe Greene [video file]. Retrieved from
http://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/ccmp/meanjoe_01g.ram
Film Greene, C. (Producer), del Toro, G.(Director). (2015).
Crimson peak [Motion picture]. United States: Legendary
Pictures.
Photograph (from book, Close, C. (2002). Ronald.  [photograph]. Museum of Modern
magazine or webpage) Art, New York, NY. Retrieved from
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=108890
Artwork - from library Clark, L. (c.a. 1960's). Man with Baby. [photograph]. George
database Eastman House, Rochester, NY. Retrieved from ARTstor
Artwork - from website Close, C. (2002). Ronald.  [photograph]. Museum of Modern
Art, New York. Retrieved from
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?
object_id=108890

Chicago is a documentation style that has been published by the Chicago University Press
since 1906. This citation style incorporates rules of grammar and punctuation common in
American English. Typically, Chicago style presents two basic documentation systems: (1)
notes and bibliography and (2) author-date. Choosing between the two often depends on
subject matter and the nature of sources cited, as each system is favoured by different groups
of scholars.

The notes and bibliography style is preferred by many in the humanities, including those in
literature, history, and the arts. This style presents bibliographic information in notes and,
often, a bibliography.

Material Type Notes/Bibliography Style

A book in print Note Style:  1. Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's
Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (New
York: Penguin, 2006), 99–100.

Duplicate Note:  2. Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma,

3. 

Bibliography: Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's

Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New
York: Penguin, 2006.
An article in a print Note Style: 1. Joshua I. Weinstein, "The Market in
journal Plato’s Republic," Classical Philology 104 (2009):
440.

Duplicate Note: 2. Weinstein, "Plato’s Republic,"

452–53.
 Bibliography: Weinstein, Joshua I. "The Market in
Plato’s Republic." Classical Philology 104 (2009):
439–58.
An article in an Note Style: 1. Gueorgi Kossinets and Duncan J.
electronic journal Watts, “Origins of Homophily in an Evolving
Social Network,” American Journal of Sociology
115 (2009): 411, accessed February 28, 2010,
doi:10.1086/599247.

Duplicate Note: Kossinets and Watts, “Origins of

Homophily,” 439.

Bibliography: Kossinets, Gueorgi, and Duncan J.

Watts. “Origins of Homophily in an Evolving
Social Network.” American Journal of Sociology
115 (2009): 405–50. Accessed February 28, 2010.
doi:10.1086/599247.
A website Note Style: 1.“Google Privacy Policy,” last
modified March 11, 2009,
http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html.

Duplicate Note: “Google Privacy Policy.”

Bibliography: Google. “Google Privacy Policy.”

Last modified March 11, 2009.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html.

The author-date style has long been used by those in the physical, natural, and social
sciences. In this system, sources are briefly cited in the text, usually in parentheses, by
author’s last name and date of publication. The short citations are amplified in a list of
references, where full bibliographic information is provided.

 
Author/Date Style In-text Citation Bibliography
A book (Pollan 2006, 99– Pollan, Michael. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma:
100) A Natural History of Four Meals. New York:
Penguin.
An article in a print (Weinstein 2009, Weinstein, Joshua I. 2009. “The Market in Plato’s
journal 440) Republic.” Classical Philology 104:439–58.
An article in an (Kossinets and Kossinets, Gueorgi, and Duncan J. Watts. 2009.
electronic journal Watts 2009, 411) “Origins of Homophily in an Evolving Social
Network.” American Journal of Sociology
115:405–50. Accessed February 28, 2010.
doi:10.1086/599247.
A website (Google 2009) Google. 2009. “Google Privacy Policy.” Last
 modified March 11.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html.

 MLA

MLA (Modern Language Association) style for documentation is widely used in the humanities,
especially in writing on language and literature. MLA style features brief parenthetical citations in
the text keyed to an alphabetical list of works cited that appears at the end of the work. Modern
Language Association – Use this style for arts, literature and the humanities.

 Example of MLA style for a book with one author:

Doe, John: “Causes of the Civil War.” Smith.

To solve this problem, this new edition of the MLA Handbook provides a "universal set of
guidelines" for citing sources across all format types.

These guidelines state that, if given, these major elements should be included in the citation:

1. Author.
2. Title of Source
3. Title of Container
4. Other Contributors
5. Version
6. Number
7. Publisher
8. Publication date
9. Location

Sometimes, elements 3-9 will repeat again, if say, your journal was inside a database.

Putting it all together:

Goldman, Anne. "Questions of Transport: Reading Primo Levi Reading Dante." The Georgia Review,
vol.64, no. 1, 2010, pp.69-88. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41403188 .

Creating in-text citations using the eighth edition

The in-text citation is a brief reference within your text that indicates the source you
consulted. It should properly attribute any ideas, paraphrases, or direct quotations to your
source, and should direct readers to the entry in the list of works cited. For the most part, an
in-text citation is the author’s name and the page number (or just the page number, if the
author is named in the sentence) in parentheses:
Imperialism is “the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center
ruling a distant territory” (Said 9).

or

According to Edward W. Said, imperialism is defined by “the practice, the theory, and the
attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory” (9).
Work Cited
Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. Knopf, 1994.