A brief introduction to citing and why we cite from North Carolina State University Click the video and select "...More" for transcripts |
Here's a brief introduction to various citation styles from Kevin deLaplante of Critical Thinker Academy ; |
Here are some links to major citation style manuals from our libraries:
For more on citing see our Citing Print & Digital Sources on our Reference Shelf Guide. Good information sources with examples on citing and general writing:
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There are two main types of tools that can help with you with citing sources:
1. Citation Generators: These tools generate a citation that you can view instantly so you can copy it, paste it into your paper, or email/save for later retrieval.
You can do this in two ways:
a. Using database tools: Databases often allow you to specify the citing style when you save or import results from them. Below are examples of how you can generate a citations from the Carnegie Mellon Library Catalog and from a research database:
Carnegie Mellon Library Catalog Example: After you've entered a search, look for the quotes above each item and click it, then choose the style you'd like to generate |
Note: you can also click on the mail icon then select the style to generate. Or click on "..." to see file format options for exporting into a citation manager. To generate or export multiple citations,you can save results in a folder then process the selected results all at once |
Research Database Example: After you've entered a search, look for the specific ways you can save, import, or print citations. In the sample database below, you have to save a result to a folder before you get the option to do any of these things:
Once you open the folder where you saved your citations, click on it to get options that will generate citations that you can print, email, or cut and paste. |
b. Free web tools: There are citation generating tools where you can enter reference information manually (such as author, title, journal, pages, etc.). These are handy when you have a small amount of references, but the quality depends on the information you input.
Here are some popular (and free) online citation generation tools:
BibMe - BibMe quickly generates citations in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard and thousands of other styles for your bibliography. I
Citation Machine - Cite sources in APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, and Harvard.
Citefast - Claims to be the web's fastest and most accurate citation generator. Generate a bibliography, in-text citations and a title page in APA 6th edition, MLA and Chicago.
EasyBib - Automatic works cited and bibliography formatting for MLA, APA and Chicago/
2. Citation Management Tools: These tools automatically harvest and format citations and full-text documents. Many of the best also have other functions citing as you write, collaborating and sharing capabilities, and social networking (see the Citation Management@CMU for supported tools).
Here's a short video from Western University that sums it up.
Transcript is available by clicking on the video and selecting "... More"