Citation and Reference Management: Overview

Citations matter

Citing sources is part of being a good research citizen: you are giving credit to those whose work came before yours, and can expect others to cite your own work in turn. CMU's Policy on Academic Integrity states that "in all academic work to be graded, the citation of all sources is required" —  this includes generative AI tools, code, data, movies, and social media as well as webpages and traditional scholarly research. 

Citations are important for a number of reasons:

• Crediting original authors: Citing sources gives credit to the original creators of the information used in your project.
• Building on scholarly discourse: Citing sources helps you build on the existing conversation in a specific field and allows your readers to continue the discussion.
• Establishing credibility: Adequate citation enhances your credibility as an author by showcasing the quality of your sources.
• Distinguishing perspectives: Citations help differentiate between your own perspective and the information sourced from others.
• Facilitating source location: Citations provide enough information for readers to locate the original sources and further their research.

Citation management tools

Citation (or reference) management tools help organize and format your research sources, simplifying the process of creating bibliographies and reference lists. They take a few minutes to set up and a bit of time to figure out, but they save you a ton of time and effort on citing sources and will help you stay organized. There are a different tools available - here at CMU we offer Zotero.