"A citation is both a signpost and an acknowledgement. As a signpost, it signals the location of your source. As an acknowledgement, it reveals that you are indebted to that source." (Hunter, n.d.)
Citations are a way of showing that you obtained ideas, images, text, or more from somewhere else. For you, a student within college, this is most often seen in taking ideas you read in a book or academic article and placing them into an class assignment you're writing.
There are many reasons as to why it is important to properly cite your sources:
1. At its base, it signals to those who read your writings (professors, other students, etc) that you did your research properly. It allows readers to verify your work by noting if you obtained information from scholarly and/or peer-reviewed sources.
2. It shows responsibility and respect to those you reference. You are properly accrediting the ideas you've obtained elsewhere to their rightful creators.
3. It allows anyone reading your work to locate the sources you used. This is helpful in case they want to read further on the topics you covered or to use the sources you used for their own writings.
4. Frankly speaking, it protects you and your work. To not properly cite something crosses the line into academic plagiarism and can lead to massive repercussions. So why not spend the extra few minutes?
For example, here is the citation in APA style of the quote used at the beginning of this box:
Hunter, Judy (n.d.). The Importance of Citation [Class handout]. Grinnell College. https://web.grinnell.edu/Dean/Tutorial/EUS/IC.pdf
If I hadn't properly credited Judy Hunter for their quote... you, the reader, would have most likely thought that those words were of my own creation! By citing properly, that means Judy receives the acknowledgement they deserve and you can find the source of the original quote should you wish to read more of their thoughts on citations (just click on the linked pdf within the citation to see the original handout paper).
Step 1: Click on the source's title
Step 2:
a. Click where it says "CITATION" in the Tools area.
b. APA is automatically selected, so if you want to use a different style of citation you need to select it on the left.
c. Double-check to make sure the citation is right!
d. Click "COPY CITATION TO CLIPBOARD" to copy the text, then paste it into your paper.
Step 1: Click on the source's title
Step 2: Click on the " (quotation mark) in the top left above the title
Step 3: Make sure that you select the citation style that you're using in your paper.
Step 4: Double-check that the citation is correct, then click "copy to clipboard" to copy the resulting citation and paste it into your paper.
Step 1: Click on the source's title
Step 2: Click "Cite" in the top right corner above the source's title
Step 3: Make sure to select the citation style that you are using for your paper
Step 4: Click on "Select" to highlight the citation text
Step 5: Make sure to manually copy the highlighted text! You can do this in 2 ways:
a) Right-click the text and select "copy"
b) On your keyboard, press and hold "Ctrl" and tap "C".
Once the citation is copied, you can paste it into your paper. Double-check and make sure the citation is correct before you do so!
