Formatting Citations

As you conduct research at various levels throughout your schooling, you will be introduced to several formats for citing your sources. The three popular formats are MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association), and Chicago Manual of Style. Each of these formats will have you include some basic information such as author, name of the paper/article/book/etc., publication date, and so on. The differences will come in how you lay out the actual citation and how you reference the citation within your paper.

Finding the format

Unless you have a photographic memory, it might be difficult for you to remember the details of each format. However, there are several sources that you can look to as references.

There are two types of sources you can use:

1. those that show you what to do to make the citation, and
2. those that create the citations for you.

Both have their up sides and both have their down sides.

Show you how

Sites such as the Purdue OWL will show you an outline of each style and inform you where to put the information, whether to use commas or periods, and how to format your Works Cited page. Here are links to the different citation formats from Purdue OWL:

• MLA
• APA
• Chicago Manual of Style

You can also find all of this information on the main websites for each of these formats:

• MLA
• APA
• Chicago Manual of Style

The only difficulty with these sites is that you might be required to purchase something related to a membership or create an account with them in order to use the online version.

These types of sites are nice because they tell you exactly how to do the work. They offer generic examples as well as templates that you simply have to match with your own source information.

On the other hand, they are also a little annoying. Sometimes you do not have all of the information that they want you to provide for the citation, but they do not tell you how to adjust it. Neither do they tell you where you can find the information they are asking for.

Create them for you

Sites such as CitationMachine.net or EasyBib.com simply ask you to input some information so they can piece it all together for the citation. You can choose the style that you are needing and go from there. 

These types of sites are nice when you do not necessarily know what you are doing when it comes to the citation. Sometimes you even get lucky and they already have the information stored in their system--this way you do not have to enter all of the information yourself.

However, these types of resources can be hard to use, especially when they do not really have the information that they say they do. For example, on Citation Machine, you can enter in a website to cite and they will pull all of the information from the page; but sometimes they mix up the website title with the article title, or they do not put in the author name though it is clearly listed under the title. These are just some of the little things that you will have to pay attention to as you move forward.

When little information is found
Sometimes you will find yourself struggling to find the information needed for a citation—this can happen often with websites. You might not be able to identify a published date or an author name or whatever. When this happens, simply log what you can. The citation might look incomplete, but if you provide all that you can find, it will be okay. You cannot be docked for being as thorough as you can.

Closing remarks

I highly recommend taking a route that uses a little bit of both methods I mentioned. If you use a citation generator, consider comparing it to what Purdue OWL or the Style Book says it is supposed to look like. This is a great way to ensure that you are getting the right results.

**Side Note: Keep track of your sources as you find them so you do not have to search for them again later. You will definitely appreciate it later down the road when you have to create a works cited page or an annotated bibliography.