USU LibrariesAvoiding Plagiarism & Citing Sources

Citing Sources

Why Cite?

Citing sources is important because:

Types of Citation Styles

The type of citation style you will use depends on the class you are writing for because different disciplines use different styles. 

Popular Citation Styles. MLA is used by humanities. APA by social sciences. Chicago Style is used by History, Anthropology and Arts. IEEE is used by Engineers and Computer Scientists. CSE is used by Scientists.

How to Cite

What's in a citation? 

No matter the citation style, there are a few basics you need to know about each source, including:

The rules differ depending on the type of source and citation style, so make sure you look up the rules for the citation style you are using.

DOIs and URLs

What is a DOI?

A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a unique ID assigned to academic articles and books that are published digitally. DOIs are permanent links and are an easy way to access a specific source. Most citation styles require the DOI to be included with citation information. An article may give its DOI by itself or as part of a URL. 

10.1177/0098628318816142 is the DOI for this article: 

Screen capture of an article titled "The Eight Hour Sleep Challenge During Final Exams Week" with a red arrow at the top left corner pointing to the URL and DOI

For articles that you accessed online, include the DOI as a link (starting with http:// or https://) in the MLA citation. Here is how the MLA citation for the above article would look on a Works Cited page:

Scullin, Michael K. “The Eight Hour Sleep Challenge during Final Exams Week.” Teaching of Psychology, vol. 46, no. 1, 2018, pp. 55–63., https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628318816142.

Which Citation Style?

What citation style would an education major most likely use? 

MLA

Try again

APA

Correct! An education major would probably use APA style.

IEEE

Try again

Check Answer