Writing & Citing

Basics of Citation

There are several citation styles used by various professions and academic journals. The purpose of this page isn't to teach you a specific citation style. Instead, it explains the basics of citation that should help you to cite in any citation style.

1. Identify the type of information

Are you citing a journal article? A magazine article? A book chapter? A webpage?

No matter what citation style you're using, you need to know what type of information you're citing so you can include all of the needed information to properly cite that type of information in the citation style you're using.

2. Identify the citation pieces

Before you can create a complete citation, you need to gather all of the needed citation pieces. If you know the type of information you're citing, the style guide for the citation style you're using should list the citation pieces that you need to gather.

3. Format the citation

It's best to find examples of references that are formatted in the style you need to use. Some things to focus on when looking at examples and creating your own citations:

• Order - Be sure that the order of the citation pieces matches the order of the citation style you're using.
• Capitalization - Is the entire article title capitalized, or just the first letter? Is the entire journal or book title capitalized or just the first letter? Keep in mind that most citation styles require you to capitalize proper nouns in titles.
• Punctuation - Each citation style requires you to use specific punctuation in specific places. Look very carefully at the citation examples you found and make sure that you use the correct punctuation in the correct location.
• Italics - Many citation styles require you to italicize (slant) things like journal titles, journal volume numbers, or book titles. Make sure you're familiar with whether your citation style requires italics for anything.
• Spacing - Citation styles require spaces in specific places. Look closely at an example of the citation style you're using and place spaces where the example puts spaces. Likewise, if the example does not put a space somewhere, don't put a space there in your citation, either.

4. Double check the citations

If you're writing a long list of references, it can be easy to make a mistake and not notice it. It's important to double check your references list before submitting your work.

Instead of checking each individual reference one at a time, you may find it faster and more effective to check a specific citation piece of each reference before moving on to the next citation piece.

For example, review how to properly format the author names in the citation style you're using. Then, check each of your references to ensure that you properly formatted the author names for all of your references. Next, review how to properly format an article title in the citation style you're using. Then, check each of your references to ensure that you properly formatted the article titles in all of your references.

Continue this process for each citation piece, and you will be more likely to notice when you made a formatting mistake in one of your references.

Test Yourself!