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Why to Cite
- When you quote or paraphrase the idea of another person in your research paper or speech, you must provide a proper citation for the source in a bibliography or list of references. This gives credit to the author and enables the reader to locate the resource you cited.
- Providing references for sources you used also lends credibility to your work, especially if you use authoritative sources.
- If you use other people's ideas and do not give them credit by referencing their work, you are committing plagiarism.
Use a Citation Manager
- Citation managers (or reference managers) are tools that keep track of the citations from your literature review search. They also simplify citing sources and creating bibliographies in your paper/report. Some widely used options are Mendeley, EndNote, and Zotero.
- See our Mendeley Research Guide for more information on using Mendeley.
