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English 76-108 First-Year Writing Research Guide

Introduction to Citations

Looking for help with citations? This page will teach you about different citation styles, answer FAQs about citations, and give examples of citing different types of resources in the most common citation styles you’ll use in your undergraduate career.

You can also find tools for citing including citation builders and citation management software to help make your academic citation management easier!

Not finding what you need on this guide? Email us at fyw-libraries@andrew.cmu.edu

Citation Examples, Works Cited Page

One of the key components of citation styles are the works cited page or bibliography, which lists the resources used in your paper in alphabetical order. We have listed some of the most common examples of MLA, APA, Chicago, and IEEE style citations below; for further questions or tricky cases, consult a style manual or feel free to reach out to your course librarians at fyw-libraries@andrew.cmu.edu

Material Type Works Cited
Book in print Clarke, Susanna. Piranesi. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.
eBook Winant, Gabriel. The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America. Harvard University Press, 2021. JSTOR, doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1g4rv6k.
An article in a print journal Parkinson, Gavin. “Surrealism, Science Fiction, and Comic Books.” Science-Fiction Studies, vol. 37, no. 2, 2010, pp. 344–45.
An article in an electronic journal Onishi, Brian Hisao. “The Uncanny Wonder of Being Edible to Ticks.” Environmental Philosophy, vol. 17, no. 2, 2020, pp. 199–219. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27252212
An encyclopedia entry

Hughes, William. “Ecocriticism.” Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature, edited by Jon Woronoff, Scarecrow Press, 2013, pp. 93–94.
A film/DVD Everything Everywhere All at Once. Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, A24, 2022.
A Page on a Website with no author* "Storytelling in the Mountains: Cryptids create curious tales." The Bluegrass Standard, 1 Sep. 2023. www.thebluegrassstandard.com/post/storytelling-in-the-mountains-cryptids-create-curious-tales.
A Page on a Website with an author Chipman, Ian. "What can Mary Shelley’s classic, Frankenstein, teach us today?" Technology & Society, Stanford University, 10 Apr. 2018. engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/what-can-mary-shelley-s-classic-frankenstein-teach-us-today
Artwork - from website Simboli, Raymond. Pinkerton Riot, Pittsburgh. 1948. Carnegie Museum of Art, collection.carnegieart.org/objects/1008e604-7839-4943-8240-7be2ab65c1b3

*Remember that a company or institution can be an "author"

Material Type Works Cited
Book with One Author

Winant, G. (2021). The next shift: The fall of industry and the rise of health care in rust belt America. Harvard University Press.
Chapter in Edited Book
Tarr, J. A. (1989). Infrastructure and City-Building in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. In S. P. Hays (Ed.), City At The Point: Essays on the Social History of Pittsburgh (pp. 213–264). University of Pittsburgh Press.
Journal Article

Onishi, B. H. (2020). The Uncanny Wonder of Being Edible to Ticks. Environmental Philosophy, 17(2), 199–219. https://doi.org/10.5840/envirophil20211596.
An encyclopedia entry Hughes, W. (2013). Ecocriticism. In J. Woronoff (Ed.), Historical dictionary of gothic literature (pp. 93–94). Scarecrow Press. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/cm/detail.action?docID=1144297
Website with author

Schaeffer, K. (2021, October 1). What we know about online learning and the homework gap amid the pandemic. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/01/what-we-know-about-online-learning-and-the-homework-gap-amid-the-pandemic/
A film/DVD Curry, T. (Director), & Nelson, S. (Director). (2021). Attica [Film]. Showtime Documentary Films.
Report by Government Agency National Cancer Institute. (2019). Taking time: Support for people with cancer (NIH Publication No. 18-2059). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/takingtime.pdf
A Page on Government Agency Website National Institute of Mental Health. (2018, July). Anxiety disorders. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml
Newspaper Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/health/memory-forgetting-psychology.html

In APA, you use the same format for print books and ebooks. For ebooks, the format or device (e.g., Kindle) is not included in the reference.

Chicago uses two styles: Notes and Bibliography (or NB) and Author-date. The notes and bibliography style is preferred by many in the humanities, including those in literature, history, and the arts. This style presents bibliographic information in notes (foot or end) and also a bibliography. This guide uses NB for examples.

 

Material Type Works Cited
Book*

Note: 1. Gabriel Winant, The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2021), 108-109.

Duplicate Note: 2. Winant, The Next Shift, 25.

Bibliography: Winant, Gabriel. The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2021.
Chapter in Edited Book

Note: 1. Joel A. Tarr, “Infrastructure and City-Building in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in City At The Point: Essays on the Social History of Pittsburgh, ed. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991), 213. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/49/edited_volume/chapter/3959397.

Duplicate Note: 2. Tarr, “Infrastructure and City-Building in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” 223.

Bibliography: Tarr, Joel A. “Infrastructure and City-Building in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.” In City At The Point: Essays on the Social History of Pittsburgh, edited by Samuel Hays, 213–64. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/49/edited_volume/chapter/3959397.
Journal Article

Note: 1. Brian H. Onishi, “The Uncanny Wonder of Being Edible to Ticks.” Environmental Philosophy 17, no. 2 (Fall 2020): 199, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27252212.

Duplicate Note: 2. Onishi, “The Uncanny Wonder of Being Edible to Ticks,” 202.

Bibliography: Onishi, Brian H. “The Uncanny Wonder of Being Edible to Ticks.” Environmental Philosophy 17, no. 2 (Fall 2020): 199–219. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27252212.
An article in an electronic journal

Note: 1. Brian H. Onishi, “The Uncanny Wonder of Being Edible to Ticks.” Environmental Philosophy 17, no. 2 (Fall 2020): 199, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27252212.

Duplicate Note: 2. Onishi, “The Uncanny Wonder of Being Edible to Ticks,” 202.

Bibliography: Onishi, Brian H. “The Uncanny Wonder of Being Edible to Ticks.” Environmental Philosophy 17, no. 2 (Fall 2020): 199–219. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27252212.
Website with author

Schaeffer, K. (2021, October 1). What we know about online learning and the homework gap amid the pandemic. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/01/what-we-know-about-online-learning-and-the-homework-gap-amid-the-pandemic/
A film/DVD Curry, T. (Director), & Nelson, S. (Director). (2021). Attica [Film]. Showtime Documentary Films.
Report by Government Agency National Cancer Institute. (2019). Taking time: Support for people with cancer (NIH Publication No. 18-2059). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/takingtime.pdf
A Page on Government Agency Website National Institute of Mental Health. (2018, July). Anxiety disorders. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml
Newspaper Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/health/memory-forgetting-psychology.html

*For ebooks, add the book URL to the end of the first note and to the bibliography entry

For more examples, check out the book (ebook or print) of the Chicago Manual of Style, or their database (linked below).

The Basics:

In-text Citing  Do not use an author's name, pages used, or date of publication in the in-text citation. Instead, refer to the source with a number in a square bracket, e.g. [1], that will then correspond to the full citation in your reference list. Some tips:

  • Place bracketed citations within the line of text, before any punctuation, with a space before the first bracket.
  • Number your sources as you cite them in the paper. Once you have referred to a source and given it a number, continue to use that number as you cite that source throughout the paper.
  • When citing multiple sources at once, the preferred method is to list each number separately, in its own brackets, using a comma or dash between numbers, as such: [1], [3], [5] or [1] - [5].

Examples of in-text citations:

"...as mentioned in my research [8]."

"For example, see [4]."

"Kowalk first patented this technique in 1982 [1]."

"McCoy [2] has argued that..."

"Several recent reports [3], [4], [15], [16] suggested that..."

Creating a List of References

List all references numerically in the order they've been cited within the paper, and include the bracketed number at the beginning of each reference.

  • Title your list as References either centered or aligned left at the top of the page.
  • The author's name is listed as first initial, last name. Example: Adel Al Muhairy would be cited as A. Al Muhairy (NOT Al Muhairy, Adel).
  • The title of an article is listed in quotation marks.
  • The title of a journal or book is listed in italics.

Examples:

Material Type Works Cited
Book in print

[1] G. Winant, The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2021.
eBook
[2]
K. Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. [E-book] Available: De Gruyter e-books.
Chapter in Edited Book
[3]
V. L. Norwood, “Heroines of Nature: Four Women Respond to the American Landscape,” in The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology, C. Glotfelty and H. Fromm, Eds., Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996, pp. 323–350.
eJournal Article in Database
[4]
B. H. Onishi, “The Uncanny Wonder of Being Edible to Ticks,” Environmental Philosophy, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 199–219, 2020, Accessed: Aug. 15, 2024. [Online]. Available: JSTOR
eJournal Article on Website
[5]
S. H. Rogers, K. H. Gardner, and C. H. Carlson, “Social Capital and Walkability as Social Aspects of Sustainability,” Sustainability, vol. 5, no. 8, pp. 3473–3483, 2013. [Online serial]. Available: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/8/3473. [Accessed Jan. 28, 2025].
An encyclopedia entry
[6]
K. C. O’Sullivan, “Health Impacts of Energy Poverty and Cold Indoor Temperature,” Encyclopedia of Environmental Health. Elsevier, Oxford, pp. 436–443, Jan. 01, 2019.
 
Conference Paper
[7]
Y.-C. Hsu et al., “Smell Pittsburgh: community-empowered mobile smell reporting system,” in Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, in IUI ’19. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Mar. 2019, pp. 65–79.
Technical Report
[8]
O. Angst et al., “Move That Goo!,” NASA/Langley Research Center, Hampton, United States, Aug. 2023. Accessed: Jan. 28, 2025. [Online]. Available: ProQuest
A film/DVD
[9]
Lily Films and D. K. Garcia, Mill Valley, Calif. The future of food, (2004).
Patent
[10]
 S. L. Kwolek, “Poly(p-benzamide) composition,process and product,” U.S. Patent 3 600 350 A, Aug. 17, 1971 Accessed: Jan. 28, 2025. [Online]. Available: Google Patents.
Standard [11] Standard Test Method for Electrical Indication of Concrete's Ability to Resist Chloride Ion Penetration, ASTM C1202-19, ASTM International, Washington, D.C., USA, Feb. 1, 2019. 
Newspaper Article [In Database]
[12]
 D. Templeton, “Region Gets an ‘F’ for Pollution Pittsburgh’s Air Again Ranks Among Worst in Nation,” Pittsburgh Post - Gazette, p. B.1, Apr. 27, 2011. Accessed: Jan. 28, 2025. [Online]. Available: ProQuest
Thesis/Dissertation
[13]
J. W. Gowdy, “Emergent architectures: A case study for outdoor mobile robots,” Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University, United States -- Pennsylvania, 2000. Accessed: Jan. 28, 2025. [Online]. Available: ProQuest

 

Frequently Asked Citation Questions (FAQs)

How do I choose a Citation Style?

Different disciplines and styles of writing often require different citation styles. While sometimes making this decision will be as easy as asking your instructor about what style is required, other times, you may have to make that distinction yourself. Generally, you can choose your citation style based on the following information:

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is used by the Humanities
APA (American Psychological Association) is used by the Sciences, Psychology, and Education
Chicago/Turabian style is generally used by History, the Fine Arts, and Business

When in doubt, always check the assignment sequence/class syllabus or ask your instructor before deciding on a style.

Can I use a quote I found on Google? Or Wikipedia?

While it’s often fine to cite a source indirectly when a scholar is being quoted within another scholarly work, things get a little more complicated when you’re trying to cite a supposedly scholarly source from a non-scholarly site.

In these cases, you should try to find the original source to ensure accuracy and proper attribution; if you’re having a hard time locating the original source, reach out to a librarian.

How do I find publication information?

Sometimes, finding the publication information will be as easy as hitting the “cite” button next to a journal article or catalog entry. Other times, you may have to find this information yourself.

Book
Webpage
Journal

 

Should I cite generative AI/ LLMs?

Because the landscape of generative AI is constantly changing, different faculty members may have different approaches to this topic. As a rule, you should always check in with your instructor before you use generative AI for their course.

If you do choose to use generative AI, you should always cite it. For more information on how to do that, follow the guide below:

Citation Tools

While you could do all of your citations manually, there are lots of tools you can use to help you make the citation process easier!

These are auto generated citations and may have errors, so you will want to check them yourself as well!