Music Industry History: Cite Your Sources

Any ideas, images, or words you do not create yourself must be given proper credit if you use them in your paper, BECAUSE you are using someone else's intellectual property. It shows you have academic integrity and honesty, and helps your readers find your information sources. It shows where your information came from, and adds credibility to your paper.

Below are some of the common citation styles.

Chicago style is commonly used in music, history and other humanities fields.

• Chicago Manual of Style -- Purdue University's OWL
• Chicago Documentation Style -- University of Wisconsin's Writing Center

Modern Language Association (MLA) documentation guidelines are often used in the humanities fields, including English, comparative literature, literary criticism, and foreign-languages.

• MLA Formatting and Style Guide -- Purdue University's OWL
• Citation Styles Handbook: MLA -- The Center for Writing Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

This style, developed by the American Psychological Association, is frequently used in psychology, sociology, business, economics, nursing, social work, and criminology.

• APA Formatting and Style Guide -- Purdue University's OWL
• Citation Styles Handbook: APA -- The Center for Writing Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

This style is a simpler version of the Chicago style.

• A Manual for Writers -- is published by the University of Chicago
• There is also a paper copy of the Manual for Writers at the Reference Desk (call number: Ref. 378.242 T929m8 2013)
• Turabian Documentation Style -- University of Wisconsin's Writing Center

• The Citation Builder -- North Carolina State University helps you create a citation for several citation styles
• More Citation Tools --  Sandra Stump, Albright College Librarian

• Music in Words: A Guide to Researching and Writing About Music -- unlimited access