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Citing Your Sources

Learn about Citation Styles

Citing Your Sources

Style guides provide formatting rules for citing your sources. Common style guides include:

  • APA - Created by the American Psychological Association, it is mainly used in Psychology and some of the other Social Sciences, as well as Nursing. The current version is the 7th edition.
  • MLA - Created by the Modern Language Association, it is mainly used in English and the Humanities. The current version is the 9th edition.
  • AMA - Created by the American Medical Association for the purpose of writing medical research. For instance, pharmacy students will find it useful. The current version is the 11th edition.
  • Chicago Manual of Style - Used in many disciplines. The current version is the 17th edition.

  • ACS Style - Created by the American Chemical Society. The most recent edition is from 2006.

What exactly is "citing your sources"? When we speak of citing, we mean two things:

  1. Citing a source within the text of a paper, either by using parenthetical references, or footnotes.
  2. Providing complete bibliographic information for your sources at the end of your paper (referred to as a Bibliography, Works Cited page or Reference list).