SPARK: Student Papers and Academic Research Kit: Citation Styles

When you use the words, ideas or arguments of other writers in your academic papers, you must acknowledge those authors in two places:

1. in the body of the paper (in-text citations or footnotes) and
2. in a bibliography that appears at the end of your paper (bibliographic citation)

While the bibliography at the end of the paper presents full bibliographic information for each source, the in-text citations provide very brief identifying information without breaking the flow of the paper and point the reader to the full reference in your bibliography.

When using another author’s work, you may quote the author directly, by inserting his or her words in your paper, or indirectly, by summarizing or paraphrasing the author’s text.

Whether you quote directly or indirectly, do give credit to the original author in your essay using in-text citations or footnotes, and in your bibliography.

Check out VCC's resources on the different Citation Styles:  APA, MLA, Harvard, Vancouver, ASA-VCC

Citation Basics

Sources are cited in slightly different ways according to various disciplinary traditions. Generally, your instructor will recommend a citation style for you to use.