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Need extra help with creating citations, or writing your research paper? Check out the Excelsior OWL for tons of step-by-step help for the entire research and writing process.
Citing sources is when you give credit to another person's words and/or ideas when you use them as evidence in an assignment. There are many reasons why it is important to cite your sources:
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When you cite your sources, you do so in two different ways:
A complete citation for each individual source you used in an assignment. This appears in a list of citations at the end of your paper. Depending on the citation style you are using (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.), this list is called different things. But the goal is the same: A full list of all the sources you used that can act as a way for someone to track down those original sources.
In-Text citations. These are shorter citations that appear in the body of the research paper or assignment. They provide information about which source you are using information from, but are shorter than the full citation at the end of the paper. Most importantly, in-text citations appear in your paper any time you use information from a source. Whether you paraphrase or use direct quotations, you must include an in-text citation!
Each citation style has their own rules for creating citations. For more information check out the other pages in this guide!
Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else's words or ideas and passing them off as your own.
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