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How To: Cite Your Sources

HOW TO | CITE YOUR SOURCES

Common Citation Styles

There are three common citation styles used in the college setting. They were designed for different disciplines and so they look a little bit different because those disciplines value different pieces of information differently. 

MLA (Modern Language Association)
  • commonly used in humanities fields
  • uses parenthetical citations in the body of the text
APA (American Psychological Association)
  • commonly used in social sciences 
  • uses parenthetical citations in the body of the text
Chicago (also sometimes known as Turabian)
  • commonly used in fields like history and humanities
  • usually employs footnotes

There are examples of what citations look like in each of these styles using common source types in the column on the left side of this page.

Less Common Styles

There are as many citation styles as there are journals and professions (or maybe even more). Depending on your course of study your discipline may use a different, specialized style. Below are some of the more common ones. If you are using one of these styles and need help with your citations, the style manual can help you get started: