Religion Research Guide

Introduction to Citing Your Resources

What is a citation?

• A citation is the basic information required to identify and locate a specific publication (e.g. book, book chapter, article, website, video, etc).

• Different academic disciplines have specific guidelines for organizing material and citing sources. These rules are published as style manuals.

Why do we cite our sources?

• Citations let your professor or anyone else who reads your work, find the items you used in your research. The key to a successful citation is providing all the information needed for your reader to find the book, article, or other item you are citing.
• Citing builds your credibility and shows that your ideas are shared by other experts in the field. Citing scholarly, peer-reviewed sources lends extra credibility to your work.

• Citation avoids plagiarism! Citing your sources properly gives credit to the original author.