Basic Research and Citation Guide

You commit plagiarism when you use another person's words or ideas without crediting them, which is a serious academic offense that could get you dismissed from school. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to cite your sources and cite them properly. 

What is a Citation? 

A citation is a reference to the source of an idea or piece of information. Your citation should allow anyone who sees your reference list to be able to find the source. Citations include information such as author, title, date, website URL, etc .Whenever you get information from a source, quote it, or base your ideas on another person's work, you must document the source you used in an accepted citation style.

Why Cite? 

• To show where you found your information
• To give credit to the author or creator whose ideas you are using
• To add credibility and support to your argument

What to Cite? 

• You must provide a citation for any facts, ideas, or data that you took from another source.
• You also have to provide a citation for any images, graphs, maps, sound files, etc. (unless you created them yourself)
• The only time you do not need to cite is when the fact or idea is “common knowledge,” eg: William Shakespeare is the author of Hamlet.

How to Cite? 

There are two basic ways to cite in-text (in the body of your paper). You can use quotations to copy exact words or you can paraphrase and summarize ideas from the source