Citation Guide for Colleges.
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Citing the sources correctly not only protects you from plagiarism but also makes your paper credible. It also allows you to acknowledge the author of the source that you used. Different types of citation methods are in existence. The best one should help your readers to understand where they can easily locate the source. It should also make it easy to know the author, the information therein, and when he or she wrote it. Below are methods you can use to cite your sources.
APA
APA stands for American Psychological Association. It is a method that is mostly used by Education, Psychology, and also Sciences. When using APA, you become consistent, thus making it easy for your readers to go through the page easily. In your title page, you should include the title, the authors’ name, and the school affiliates. On the same page, do not forget to include the instructor’s name, due date, and the course number. Write an abstract that contains 100–200 words. The preferred typeface should be 12-point Times New Roman. Use in-text citations style, and once you finish writing, list all the reference sources. The reference should be on its page and write the title reference.
MLA
MLA represents Modern Language Association style. Once your instructor tells you to use MLA style, here are things you need to include. Your document setting should have a 1-inch margin, 12-point time’s new Romans, and double-spaced. The page header should contain the name, the page number on every page on the upper right. When citing a source, do not include a comma between the author’s name and the page number. In the list of the work cited, you should sort the author to follow alphabetically. The citation generator is available to help you generate references
You can also use this citation tool at edubirdie.com to help you cite everything automatically. You will not waste time citing manually. It will also help you edit your references faster. It will give your paper credibility and a professional look. Using this tool will help you avoid plagiarism.
Chicago
If you are doing humanities and arts, your lecturer will request you to use this method. When citing the text, you should include the author’s last name and publication date. You should cite the sources in the footnotes or the endnotes. Do not worry about the bibliography. With the citation machine, you can copy it and paste it. That will make your work much easier.
Conclusion
Citing your sources correctly gives credibility to your paper since the users can refer to the sources. Again, it helps you avoid plagiarism as well as acknowledge the author. There are different styles to help you cite your sources. The most common ones include MLA, APA, and Chicago.
