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The Re(Searching) Process: Citing and Referencing

This guide was created to help high school students, new CBU students, and community members with searching for resources (with open access and open education), evaluating various resources, and building citation skills (using MLA).

MLA Style

This page focuses on MLA standards of citation and reference while providing links to various other citation style guides such as APA and Chicago. MLA is typically used in the subjects of Humanities. APA is used in the subjects of Education, Psychology, and Sciences. Lastly, Chicago is mainly used in History and Business subjects. When in doubt on which citation style to use, ask your instructor what their preference is.

Why Cite?

  • Sources that support your ideas give your paper authority and credibility
  • Shows you have researched your topic thoroughly
  • Crediting sources protects you from plagiarism 
  • Shows your instructor/audience/employer where you got your information from

When to Cite?

  • Direct Quote
  • Paraphrasing of a quote, passage, or an idea
  • Summarizing another's ideas or research
  • Specific reference to a fact, figure, or phrase.

Citation Hacks

If you are accessing a resource (e.g. books, articles, etc.) through CBU library or with google scholar you can copy and paste the pregenerated citation to your Work Cited Page. But remember to double check with a MLA guide to make sure that it is accurate and up-to-date with MLA standards.

CBU Library-Novanet:

 

Google Scholar:

MLA In-Text Citations

In-Text Citations are used when a person is quoting, paraphrasing, and/or summarizing another source within their own paper to support their ideas.

MLA Work Cited Page

A Work Cited page is the last page of a paper and it is where you show where you retrieved your supportive sources such as books, articles, videos, websites, newspapers, etc.