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Education: Citing/Evalating Sources

Importance of Citing Sources

Always cite the sources you use in your research. Here are some reasons why it is so important

  • Listing your sources shows your reader you've done proper research get your information
  • Being a responsible scholar means giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas
  • Avoid plagiarism by citing ideas and quoting text used by other authors
  • Citing sources accurately allows your reader to track down the sources you used. The use of footnotes, a bibliography or reference list is an important part of every research paper. 

Which Citation Style Should I Use?

Always check with your instructor to find out what style they would prefer. The three most popular styles that are used for specific academic subjects are:

  • APA - Social Sciences and Sciences
  • AMA - Medical Sciences
  • MLA - Humanities
  • Chicago 
    • Notes & Bibliography - Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences
    • Author/Date - Social Sciences and Sciences  

Citation Management Tools

Citation management software is designed to help you store, organize, and cite your research. Most of the available citation management tools will help you store and organize your sources in one place, share sources with other researchers, read and annotate PDFs, insert formatted citations and bibliographies into word processing software.

RefWorks
All Sage students, faculty, and staff have access to RefWorks citation manager, free of charge through the Sage Library. Click here to set up a free account with your sage.edu email address. How to use RefWork tutorial video. 

Quick links to other popular citation managers:
Mendeley (free)
Zotero (free)
EndNote
EndNote Basic (free version)

Get citations easily in the library catalog

After you find a resource you want to cite click on the quotation mark icon. A window will expand and you can choose your desired citation style. You can then copy the citation. 

Cite easily

Citation Resources

Evaluating Sources

Numerous websites and blogs are available but some may not be accurate, creditable or useful. Therefore, you should always carefully evaluate a source - no matter how reliable it seems to be - before using it for your research. Use a TRAP to evaluate materials for quality.