Literature Reviews

Citing your sources is important because:

• Giving credit (attribution) to original authors helps you avoid plagiarizing
• Citations allow your readers to find your sources
• Citations add credibility to your arguments
• Your professors expect it as part of standard academic discourse

What is a citation?

A citation is a record of where you encountered a certain idea.  If you read an article and want to incorporate the ideas that article presents into a piece of coursework for one of your classes, you need to document the fact that you are borrowing an idea from someone else.

Whenever you cite an idea in the text of a paper you are working on, you note it in the text.  This will be done with either a footnote or in parentheses, depending upon which style you use.

You also generate an alphabetical list of all the works you cite in your paper.  When you are finished writing, this list goes at the end of your paper.

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the use of someone else's work, including words, ideas, projects and/or any other material without citing the source.

Common forms of plagiarism can include:

• Copying, cutting and pasting without citing the original source
• Passing off another’s ideas, conclusions, or work as your own
• Paraphrasing incorrectly
• Submitting another person's paper as your own
• Fabricating citations
• Using media files, such as image, audio or video files, without citing them