Graduate Student Services: Citation Style & Tools

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Citing the work that supports your research is both an ethical issue and a legal issue.

The ethics of citing is based on the scholarly tradition of giving credit for information and ideas that are not one's own. You have the ethical responsibility to cite all works that were used to support your research, to give credit to someone's earlier work and to provide a clear path for those who follow in your footsteps.

As so eloquently expressed by Isaac Newton in a letter to Robert Hooke in 1675 (Merton 1965):

If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.

The legal issues of citing one's sources are codified in Copyrights, Title 17 of the U.S. Code, which describes the legal protections of authors' and creators' intellectual property rights.

[Merton, RK. 2006. On the shoulders of giants: a Shandean postscript. New York: The Free Press. p. 31]

There are a number of different citation styles, including but not limited to APA, MLA, Chicago Style, and Turabian.  The citation style you will use depends largely on your major or, in some cases, your own personal preference. The important thing to remember is that you keep the preferred style consistent throughout your paper; avoid mixing styles or creating breaks in continuity of one particular style.  Here is a short list of online style guides to get you started:

APA Style: Learning APA Style
Online resource from APA for the 6th edition of the style guide.

The Purdue OWL
Online resource on how to use APA and MLA styles of citation.

Chicago Manual of Style Online--Quick Guide
Online resource on how to use Chicago style.

Turabian Citation Guide
Online resource at the University of Chicago for Kate L. Turabian's simplified Chicago style.

Council of Science Editors (CSE) Style Guide (from the Ohio State University Library)
This guide is based on Scientific style and format: the CSE Manual for authors, editors, and publishers, 7th edition. [Print copy of complete guide available - see below]

Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 7th ed.

Call Number: Ref T11 .S386 2006

Publication Date: 2006

Available at the Science and Technology Reference Desk

Endnote [$25 for program from ITS] | LibGuide to Using Endnote

Endnote is an application that imports citations from your searches in web databases and helps you organize your references. It works with Microsoft Word helping you create in-text citations, footnotes, and bibliographies.

Endnote Basic [Free] | LibGuide to Using Endnote Basic

EndNote Basic (formerly EndNote Web) is an online program that helps you organize references and create properly formatted bibliographies. This is a separate program from the desktop version of EndNote. It is a free version of EndNote available for institutions which subscribe to ISI Databases, like Web of Science.

Mendeley [Free] | LibGuide to Using Mendeley

Mendeley allows you to share references with others or to maintain a private library. Mendeley collections can be exported to Endnote, CiteULike, or Zotero libraries. Mendeley works with Word 2008 and OpenOffice to insert citations into your documents. It enables you to extract citation information from downloaded pdfs.

Zotero [Free]  LibGuide to Using Zotero

Zotero is a plug-in from Mozilla that you use with the Firefox browser. Simply download the plug-in, activate the Zotero application by clicking on the Zotero icon in your browser. You can now capture citations into a library held on your hard drive or on a flash drive. Zotero works with Word and OpenOffice after you have downloaded the plug-ins.