Citation Styles Guide

Citations are references to the sources that you use when you are writing your paper.

Citations give credit to the authors of the information and ideas you are referring to in your paper and also allow your reader to locate your sources to find out more about your topic.

Citations are alphabetically arranged in a bibliography (or works cited page, or references page) at the end of your paper. A bibliography is simply a list of all the sources you have used in the process of conducting research for your paper.

There are also in-text citations, such as footnotes and parentheticals, which alert readers to cited material in the body of your paper and tell them exactly where to go to find them. These citations work in conjunction with a bibliography.

The citation style in which you format your paper depends on the academic discipline involved.

Chicago citation style is used by History,  Business, and the Fine Arts

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is used by the Humanities

and APA (American Psychological Association) is used by Education, Psychology, and Sciences