How to Cite Sources?

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Date: August 19, 2020

Overview of the Term Citation

Citation is an important requirement for avoiding the chances of plagiarism. Even the citation can result in plagiarism because of the improper method of citation. Therefore, the proper procedure of citation is required about which most of the people are not aware of. Basically, if you have a question in your mind, “how to cite the source”? In fact, you require a complete understanding of the citation. The process of citing the sources depends on many factors like the type of the work, the area of the topic, the expectations of your reader, and also on the type of the text and the source from where you are getting the information. Therefore, you can get a lot of information from the Internet about all of these factors.

Different Forms of Citation

Presenting just some of the general forms of citation, it has found that the identification of the sources is one of the major considerations in the citation.

1. If you think that the referred resources are supporting your view and making your arguments stronger then you should mention the complete name of the author and the link from where you have taken the information. There are various ways through which you can show the sources of the material. The most common are the footnotes, in which just below the copied or the referred work you can show the source of the material. Most of the readers prefer to go through the footnotes because it gives immediate information about the source. 
2. The second way is the endnote, in which you can give all of the information about the sources. You can also give the sources through the bibliography in which alphabetically you can give the links and the books that has concerned. In all of these methods, most of the writers prefer the footnotes because of the convenience they provide to the readers. 

Read more: About the different styles of citation

Rules of Citation

Citation is used in different disciplines and areas; like the citation procedure in psychology is different from the procedure in the literature or science. You can get the guidance from the instructor about the form of citation to be followed. Understanding of the rules of citation is necessary before writing any piece of article, case study or the research paper. Following are some of the rules of citing the sources:

1. Wherever, you are using the reference work you have to mention the name of the author, link if any, and the name of the book or the date of publishing the material. In the case of an unknown author, you can describe his profession.
2. If you are giving the exact wording of the other writer then it is known as the quotation and for this, you should properly mention in the commas and footnote should be there at the end of the page. And if you follow the same pattern then you can quote as many times as you want.
3. If you are changing the wording of the author then it is obligatory for you to mention that because otherwise it is known as the paraphrasing plagiarism.
4. In the bibliography, you can mention the sources in alphabetical order or according to the manner in which they were being used.
5. Most of the time you can follow the same pattern to cite the sources but it is not applicable all the time and therefore, before writing anything you should consult your instructor or you can get the information from the Internet.