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EGL 101 - Steven Monk - Fall 2023

What is a Citation?

Cite It Right!

What is a citation?

A citation is all the information about a given source organized according to a standard format or citation style guide.

MLA, APA and Chicago Style are used in classes at Oakton College.

Citations include information such as

  • author's name,
  • title of the book, article or website,
  • name of the magazine or journal,
  • date published or updated
  • if the information was found in print or online

Using citations gives credit to an author or creator for their research, writings and ideas.

What do I Need for a Citation?

What do I include in a citation for an internet source?

MLA requires as much of the following information as possible:
      Author's name
      Title of the work
      Title of the website
      Name of the website sponsor
      Date of the most recent update
      Date of access (or the date you looked at the website)		 APA requires as much of the following information as possible:
      Author's name
      Date of publication or update
      Title of the source
      URL  or
      DOI - Digital Object Identifier  - for online newspaper, magazine or journal articles.		 CMS or Chicago Manual of Style requires as much of the following information as possible:
      Author's name
      Title of the work
      Title of the source
      Date of publication or update
      URL

Your List of Citations

When you are finishing your research paper, it's important to gather up all of your sources and make a list of complete citations for each source.

That list has a different name in each citation style.

  • MLA - Works Cited
  • APA - References
  • Chicago - Bibliography

Even though the lists have different names they have many features in common.

  • Start your list of citations on a new page
  • Center the title of your citation list
  • Arrange the citations in alphabetical order by the last name of the author
  •         or, if there is no author, by the first major word in the title.
  • Double space the information in the list
  • Use a hanging indent for each entry
  • Do not number items in the list of citations

Google Docs and Microsoft Word both offer options for formatting your citations with the required "hanging indent."