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FYS 100 -- Media, the Public Sphere & the Crisis of American Democracy (Fall 2014): Citing Your Materials

Citation Guides

Both the Modern Language Assocaition (MLA) and the The American Psychlogical Association (APA) has specific guidelines for the formatting, layout and citation of resources in academic papers. The following links provide ample citation guidance. For more Information please see a reference librarian regarding the APA Style Guide 6th Edition and the The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th Edition.

APA Style Guides

  • APA at the Purdue OWL -- One of the most comprehensive and frequently updated online resource for APA Style.

MLA Style Guides

ACS Style Guide

  • ACS Style Guide: Effective Communication of Scientific Information  is an established and definitive source within and beyond the chemistry community, educating researchers on how to effectively communicate scientific information. Online access to the ACS Style Guide is an exclusive benefit to institutions that subscribe to the ACS publication package, which Albright does. You will be asked to log in with your LionLink account if you wish to use this resources off-campus.

ASA Style Guide

  • ASA Style at the Purdue Owl -- One of the most comprehensive and frequently updated online resource for style of the American Sociological Association.

Chicago Style Guides

General Writing Resources

  • Writing Style and Structure Guide -- This comprehensive guide covers academic essay preparation, structure, grammar and a a host of additional resources for the academic writer collated from online education resources.

Free Resources

Please keep in mind that the following tools are not perfect. It is highly recommended that you verify the accuracy of any citations produced by these tools using the citation style's official manual.

  • BibMe
    BibMe is a free citation generator developed at Carnegie Mellon University that produces citations and bibliographies in APA, MLA, Chicago and Turabian styles. It has some features not found in other free citation generators, such as autofill and the ability to switch between citation styles.

  • Citation Machine
    Citation Machine is a free site that automatically produces MLA, APA, Turabian or Chicago style citations for a variety of sources (but not bibliographies). Users can copy and paste citations into Word. It was developed by David Warlick, an educator.

  • Citavi Free
    Free full-featured version of Citavi for up to 100 references. Search for, manage, organize and cite sources.

  • DocsCite
    Docscite is a free site that automatically produces MLA or APA style citations for government documents. DocsCite was developed at, and is provided by, Arizona State University Libraries.

  • EasyBib
    EasyBib is a free site where you can create a works cited list and parenthetical (in-text) citations.  In many cases, EasyBib can create a citation automatically (autocite) if it recognizes the book, website, journal article etc., that you are citing. 
  • KnightCite
    KnightCite is a free site that automatically produce MLA, APA, or Chicago style citations for 25 types of sources.
    From the Hekman Library at Calvin College.

  • Mendeley
    A free reference manager and academic social network. Users can automatically generate bliographies, collaborate with other researchers online, import papers from other research software, find relevant papers, access papers from anywhere online, and read papers on the go with iPhone app.

  • NoodleTools Express
    Free tool that allows users to create citations in MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian styles that can be copied and pasted into a document. Citations are not compiled into a source list and cannot be saved.

  • StyleWizard
    This free site automatically produces MLA or APA style citations for 6 basic types of sources. There is excellent help on each screen to walk users through the processing of citing a source.

  • Zotero
    Zotero is a free, open source utility that works in the Firefox browser to help users collect, manage and cite sources. It was developed at George Mason University. Highly recommended.

Citing in Powerpoint

Just because you are putting your information into a Powerpoint presentation instead of a formal written paper doesn't mean you don't have to cite your sources. All information unless it belongs to you, must be cited. Click here for a sample Powerpoint presentation from the library at Pima Community College to see examples of how to properly cite material.

Basic Tips:

  • Place the citation on the same slide as the information. You can use a smaller font if you prefer.
  • Follow the correct citation style as required by your professor.
  • Even though you have included a citation on the slide with the information, include the full citation in a Works Cited or Reference page at the end of the presentation.

Avoiding Plagarism

When it is time to gather all of your notes and start writing the paper, avoid the most common mistake - plagiarism. Plagiarism is not only taking large parts of someone else's work and not attributing credit to that author; paraphrasing sections of a work, even using synonyms and citing the work, is also plagiarism.

  • Use direct quotations to support the paper's thesis.
  • Rethink and rewrite the author's original idea and express it in a new way.

Even if the ideas are rewritten, the source of the idea must be cited and the author given credit.

For further information, see