Citation Formatting: Overview

This guide will introduce you to citation formatting basics, including popular styles, and guides and tools you can use to create citations. 

The main reason we need to cite our sources is to avoid plagiarism and give credit to those whose ideas or research we are using to support our arguments or points. 

Citation styles create uniformity and guide us on how to:

• Add in-text citations or footnotes to the body of a document
• Create reference lists or bibliographies at the end of a document
• Format figures and tables 

How do you choose a citation style? It depends on what you are working on. If you're completing a writing assignment for a class or course, your instructor will most likely direct you to use a particular citation style. If you are publishing in a journal, visit the journal's author instructions page to learn more about the required citation style. If you are compiling a report or document for work and don't have a particular style in mind, you may want to choose a common style like APA or MLA. 

There are thousands of citation styles. Common ones include APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association), AMA (American Medical Association), NLM (National Library of Medicine), and many more. Visit the tabs on the left for more information.

You can create citations by hand, or consider using a citation manager if you are continually writing and creating bibliographies. Visit our Citation Management guide for more information.